


We Said We'd All Go Down Together

by melchixr



Category: Spring Awakening - Sheik/Sater
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1960s, Angst, Arguing, Character Death, Depression, Drug Use, Enemy Lovers, F/M, Friendship, Gun Violence, Homesickness, Love Letters, M/M, Pining, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sexual Content, Sexual Repression, Some Fluff, Vietnam War, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-31
Updated: 2018-08-06
Packaged: 2019-04-16 03:24:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 14
Words: 29,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14155584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/melchixr/pseuds/melchixr
Summary: When I was much younger, my grandfather, and namesake, would take me to Liberty Island. He’d buy us some ice cream and talk about how he left his country to escape the first world war, with my grandmother pregnant with my mother. To Thea, he was a hero. To me, he was the cool guy who bought me ice cream and showed me magic tricks and put my on his strong and broad shoulders at the top of the statue to look out at the ships going by. I hoped another blond-haired, plucky little kid like me was on his grandfather's shoulder, pointing and waving at our boat.For good measure, I wave back.-Inspired by Goodnight Saigon by Billy Joel-





	1. They left their childhood on every acre

The harbor was overflowing noise. Mothers yelling to their sons, girlfriends begging not to be left, friends calling out that they’ll have a beer when everyone gets back.

But Thea was quiet. Instead, she stared straight ahead, as if she were looking past me and seeing into the insides of the great, steel monster behind me.  My sister had always been quiet when she was scared, or angry, which was really scary because she normally was as loud as she pleased. But right now, I couldn’t tell if she was scared or angry or just didn’t want to speak to me. “Tell mom I’ll write every Sunday, alright?” I told her, attempting to catch her attention. “Alright?” 

Thea finally looked at me, for just a moment. Her eyes glanced at me through circular glasses, my father’s eyes, the same eyes as mine. It was hard to believe someone with the same blood as me could harbour so much resentment. “Alright, Thea?” I repeated once more. 

“Yeah, fine.”

Her gaze still refused to reach mine. “I’m gonna miss you, Thea. I’m sorry I’m gonna miss your graduation.” I reached out to touch her shoulder. She didn’t immediately flinch  but she definitely shifted away from my touch. “I’ll make it up to you when I get back.”

“I’ll be in college when you get back.”

Thea’s hand, covered in doodles and pen marks, reached up to tug at her braid. Now I knew she was angry. She was trying to distract her hands before they reached out to punch me in the face. “Well then I’ll make it up somehow. Be sure to tell your friends how good your hot-shot army brother looks in his uniform.”

My attempt at humor fell upon deaf ears. She kept pulling at her hair, twirling brown strands of hair between her fingers. “They don’t like you, Hanschen,” She spit back. Her eyes stared at my military issued shoes, which felt too big and too small at the same time. 

“Why not?” I asked as I saw men like me begin to board the boat. “They used to think I was handsome. I was voted best looki-”

“That was before. Before you went off to where you don’t belong and sit on your ass with your gun,” She hissed under her breath, so the crying mothers didn’t hear her speech. I had heard it a hundred times before. In the hallways, with her friends, at the dinner table. The last one to spite my conservative father. 

Thea Rilow was  the golden girl of the anti-war protests at our high school. She held the signs and burned the flags just like she saw on the news. So the whole world seemed to stare in shock when her big brother was drafted. They also stared in shock at the fact that she didn’t rip me apart on the spot.

“I don’t know what to tell ya, Thea,” I muttered.  “I’m sorry you don’t like it but-”

“Melchior Gabor burned his card.”

“Well I didn’t.”

“Melchior Gabor went to the center of town and light it on fire at the steps of the town hall.”

“I’m not Melchior Gabor.”

Silence came between us again. Maybe this was better. I didn’t want to get on the boat, but I didn’t want to stand here in front of my sister’s judging eyes. She could go back into Melchior Gabor’s arms and stay there until the war ended. Maybe he’d protect her instead of me.  

After a few more moments of our silent island surrounded by bustle and noise, I spoke up, “I need to head out. Make sure dad doesn’t forget to get the mail. And make sure to ask mom about her day. And feed the dogs when you get home from school. And send me postcards from Berkeley. And don’t kiss on the first date. And see if dad needs help reaching things, he refuses to use a step ladder. And….”

My mind went blank. I had said so much the whole ride here, now I had nothing else to say.

“I’ll try to remember, Hansi,” Her voice became softer, dropping the usual identity of young Joan Baez. “Don’t be an idiot, okay? Try and stay safe.”

I leaned over, placing my lips on her forehead, right between my father’s borrowed eyes. “I will, short stuff.  You don’t need to worry about me.”

Before I could step back, Thea wrapped her arms around my neck. She was a small girl, mostly unassuming. But the weight of her hug was practically crushing. Maybe when you spend 17 years with someone sleeping one room away from you, it’s a bit harder to say goodbye. “Bye, Hanschen. Please write.”

Another kiss to the temple and Thea let me go. She allowed me to take a step back and take in her full form. She was a formidable girl. Any guy would be lucky to have her and should fear getting face to face. “Stay in school, kiddo,” was all that could come out of my mouth before my voice cracked. She didn’t respond, and judging by the tears spilling down her cheeks, she was faced with the same problem.

So I turned to leave, my chest out and my chin high. Just as I walking into the first day of school. ‘Don’t let them see you shake’ was all that my head said to me as I walked. 

The boat was crowded and busy, filled to the brim with young men, my age and a bit older, trying their best to not let one another know they were really weak underneath it all. A boy, I called him that because there was no way he was a man, was in the corner crying. He must’ve been barely 18, but looked around fifteen or sixteen. All I could see was the top of his head and his shoulder shaking with sobs. No one spoke to him, they just walked by, casting looks over their shoulders as they went. They all wished, just like me, that they could be doing the same. But they promised people. Their girlfriends and best friends and parents and cousins and teachers, that they would be strong. 

He must’ve not promised anything. 

Inside the ship became much too crowded for me. I couldn’t bear to sit and watch the crying boy for another minute.  If I did, I would start crying too. 

The deck was much better, with actual fresh air and much less crying kids. We weren’t too far from New York. I could still see the shape of the statue of liberty that greeted my grandparents when they came to this country. She looked as if she were waving goodbye. 

When I was much younger, my grandfather, and namesake, would take me to Liberty Island. He’d buy us some ice cream and talk about how he left his country to escape the first world war, with my grandmother pregnant with my mother. He hated war since then, teaching his children the values of love and speaking your mind. To Thea, he was a hero. To me, he was the cool guy who bought me ice cream and showed me magic tricks and put my on his strong and broad shoulders at the top of the statue to look out at the ships going by. I hoped another blond-haired, plucky little kid like me was on his grandfather's shoulder, pointing and waving at our boat.

For good measure, I wave back.

Then, the stench of vomit filled my senses up, making me forget any happy kids in dumb statues. I looked around to find the source of the retching noise and disgusting smell and saw a man leaning up against the railing a few feet away from me. Be was doubled over, retching up his lunch over the edge of the ship. 

After spitting a few more times into the water, the man stood back upright. Although his face was a faint green, I would recognize that man anyday.

“Fancy meeting you here, Melchior.”

Melchior turned to me, wiping his mouth with his sleeve in a quick motion. He didn’t seem embarrassed. He just looked at me through dull grey eyes, half lidded. “Hi there, Hanschen,” He muttered, one of his thin hands on his stomach, the other clutching the railing with white knuckled. “I thought I might see you here. Your sister told me you were drafted.”

“She also told me you burned your notice,” I approached tentatively, fearful he would hurl all over me. But he noticed my hesitation, and turned back out to face the fading city.

“I did, but that’s all symbolic. I still had to report.”

“Word on the street was that you ran away to Canada.”

“All I ran to was my room to hide for a few weeks. You try facing the fact that everything you stood for would came crashing down within minutes all because of a dumb piece of paper.” Melchior assured me. He was a tall kid, always had been, graduated the same year as me. But he was all about fighting the man while I was about pleasing him. Melchior would show up late to class, but still somehow get the top grades, placing me as his second. He would parade the halls in pink lipstick, showing off how little he cared to conform. Bragged about spending his summers in California where he danced in gay clubs and played his guitar on the street to the other jobless nobodies, smoking and dancing and talking like they were unstoppable. “I didn’t wanna show my face. Not after I talked so much about my hate for this dumb war. Now I’m no better than you, a doormat personified.”

“I don’t wanna be here either, Gabor,” I bit back. “I wanted to be in university right now. I was supposed to be a lawyer.”

“And I was supposed to change the world. Now look at us.”

For a minute or two, we were quiet, watching the ocean  and the ever shrinking Manhattan. Melchior’s hair used to be long, whipping around with those pretty boy curls that used to make every girl in school think he was the hottest thing since the invention of fire. Or the Beatles’ long lost member. Now it was so short, cut off just like mine in basic training. Short and straight without a curl to be seen.

How far the mighty had fallen.

Melchior broke the silence by clearing his throat. “I heard Georg got married last week, right before he left.”

“He did, you weren’t a the wedding?” Melchior shook his head. He never showed up to things lesser than him. Not prom, not parties, not even the wedding of a kid we’d been hanging around since kindergarten. “It was fine. He and Greta sure are cute together. Even though she’s still in high school.”

“It’s nice to have someone to go back to. Someone you know will be there,” He suggested, eyes locked on our hometown. “I almost got hitched to Wendla. Just the fear that I’d come back and everything would be different… I wanted to be sure that one thing would stay the same.”

“Why didn't you?” 

Melchior didn't speak for a moment, like he didn't know why. After some time, he finally found a reason. “She’s gonna go to college in Pennsylvania. I don't wanna keep her here if she doesn't want to be. I would have gone with her though. Maybe I’ll find her again when I get back.”

“You think she’ll wait?” 

 

Melchior held his breath, staring down over the edge into the soft waves. “I don’t know, Hanschen. I wish I could tell you.”

The sound of other men took over our conversation. It sounded like a fight was already breaking out between a couple of older guys, maybe a couple years older than me. No fists were swinging yet, but they had already gotten pretty close, shouting into each other’s face. Luckily, a few guys much bigger and better than us were already on the scene and holding the men back.

“That’s what they’re like an hour in. Whaddya think they’ll be like when we get there?” Melchior mused. With a sigh, he looked back over the ocean. 

I cast my gave back to the shrinking skyline. Now, I couldn’t tell the difference between the statue and the other blurry buildings. I already missed it. 

“Are you scared, Melchio-”

Melchior started retching over the side again. Poor fucking kid. I honestly felt like doing the same. Watching his breakfast hit the water, I leaned over to pat his back. “There there, kid. We’ll be there in no time.”

 


	2. We came in spastic like tameless horses

“How early were you up, Gabor?” Were the first words to leave my mouth. While the morning bell rang and all the other men opened their eyes for the first time, Melchior was perched on his cot, playing his beat up guitar. It looked old, covered in stickers and sharpie and in his own bold bubble letters: ‘THIS MACHINE KILLS FASCISTS’ along the fretboard. 

“Since six,” He responded, plucking at the strings what sounded like a Rolling Stones song. “It’s too humid. I can’t sleep.”

I noticed how sticky the air was once I sat up, feeling it hit my chest like an air full of wet sponges. “You’ll get used to it. You’re going to have to sleep eventually, Melchior. You can’t run off of a few hours forever.”

“I can and I will, Hanschen. Besides, I already ate breakfast. I have look-out eight to noon,” He continued to remain seated as I stood, picking up my button up uniform shirt. “You going on another run?”

“I’m trying to, then I’m helping the new guys with training hand to hand,” I explained , pulling off my sleeping pants and putting on my thick green uniform pants. Across the tent, a group of guys laughed loudly at a joke. It was crazy that they were able to make friends so fast. Maybe, by some blessing, they had been friends back at home. But half the guys in their division were from the south, speaking in thick accents that annoyed the hell out of me. So it wasn't likely you knew anyone.

Melchior stopped playing, strumming loudly before pulling his guitar case out from underneath his cot.  “I’ll see ya around, Hansi,” He said as he put away the instrument.

“Don’t call me that,” Immediately came out of my mouth, without me even thinking it. “My sister calls me that. Only her.”

He shook his head at me, as if he were disappointed. “You travel over eight thousand miles and you still got a stick up your ass. This is like high school all over again.”

“I didn’t have a stick up my ass in high school!” 

Melchior ignored my defense and walked out of the tent into the raucous and even more humid outdoors. Whoever thought it was smart to have us out here in the middle of summer was someone I’d like to grab by throat and ask them if they wanted to sit in air so thick it felt like honey against your skin. I was just glad wasn’t as prone to sweat as some of the glistening hot-shots around here.

“Hey, Rilow!” A familiar voice called as I tugged on my boots. Bobby’s tall, brutish figure loomed over me, casting a grand shadow across my cot. “You heading out for a run?”

“Not with you, Maler,” I replied, keeping my eyes on my laces.

Bobby sat down on Melchior's cot, stretching out his muscular limbs as he did. He was already glistening with sweat from what I could tell, but I was sure to keep my eyes below his neck. Instead, I focused on his shiny silver tags. “That sucks.  A bunch of sorry sons of bitches got the flu these last couple days, so that’s keeping my hands full. What about you? Are you back on perimeter?”

“I’m not on perimeter,” I responded, standing bold upright. I didn’t bother to make my bed, knowing Sergeant Baker would give me hell for it. But I didn’t care, I just had to get out of that tent faster than I ever had. 

Bobby’s slow, drawing voice stopped me. It was a dripping Louisiana drawl that hit every rib on it’s way up and down my spine. “Rilow, I know that’s not true.” He said in a quiet voice. It was as if he didn’t want anyone else to hear his. And I understood why. “I saw you on perimeter at dinner last night,” His hands reached out to grab my arm, halting my budding movement to try and walk away. His hand held on tightly to my forearm. “Don’t try to lie to me alright, Hanschen?”

“Alright, Maler,” I responded quickly, feeling the area around his hand grow hot. “I’m getting breakfast.”

“Am I invited?”

His hand finally let go of my arm, allowing me to take a step back and realize how close he had pulled me. I had never been awfully tall, so Bobby’s slightly taller than average height seemed to tower.

I remember his eyes locking on me on the very first day here, over a week ago. His eyes were blue, just like mine, but a different blue. They were intense and darker than mine. They looked right through me with arched, curious brows, as if I were a lamb wandering blindly into a lion’s den. But he hadn’t pounced yet, just circled me. Like he was waiting for me to break a leg or stumble into his maw.

Then maybe I was lucky he was a medic. 

“No,” I stated blankly. “I’m heading for a run.”

“Stop lying, Rilow. It’s not attractive,” As he spoke down to me, I took another step back, nearly falling backwards over my cot. “Watch out.”

Managing to escape Maler’s jaw was like the trapeze act that came to Coney Island a few years ago. It was my second to last year of high school and I had gone with a couple friends. I remembered Thea, mother had made me bring along her while she was still a dork middle schooler, being in awe of the scantily clad women jumping from swing to swing. They flowed like water, weightless across the tent. It must’ve been beautiful because it managed to stay ingrained in my mind even after all the friends I went with forgot to write me.

I, just like water or the flexible girls, skirted past Maler, just beyond his claws and out to the makeshift track we had made around the base. It was technically supposed to be the path those watching after the artillery while the engineers worked. But many of the infantry men who had been brought as a defense garrison used it like an old school track. 

“Morning, Melchior,” I chuckled as I passed my cot-neighbor, walking solemnly with his rifle on his shoulder. 

Melchior ignored me, knowing full well he Sergeant Baker would have his head if he spoke. But Baker wouldn’t have mine if I leaned over to slap his ass as I passed. 

The run was like any other, making me greatful I did sports all my life so this life-change didn’t shock me. The only thing that did was when I looked out over the hills to see, instead of skyscrapers and apartments, a vast jungle. ‘Nothing like the concrete jungle, eh?’ Melchior had laughed as soon as we arrived to the base. 

The next thing to shock me was the large lump that was blocking my path. Specifically, it shocked me as I ran into it and nearly fell head first over him.

“Jesus fucking hell!” I gasped, stopping myself before I could fall. 

The lump suddenly stood upright. I was surprised to see it was another soldier. He was scrawny, with the shirt that was tight on me being extremely baggy on him. Which was confusing because they offered a size small. When he turned around, I could see he was deathly pale. He looked young, much younger than me or anyone else.    
  


“Whoa there, slugger!” I laughed before noticing how out of breath he was. The poor kid was still hunched over, panting and gasping for air. “You alright? Are you even supposed to be here?”

“Wha-What do you mean?” He finally sputtered. He looked like he hadn’t slept since he was ten with bags under his eyes I could probably store my change in. 

I looked around to make sure no other soldiers were coming to trip over us. I then pulled the kid aside, towards the fence surrounding the camp. “You don’t look a day older than sixteen, kid.” Another second later, and I realized something. His sunken face paired with a mess of curly black hair reminded me of someone. “Wait...Holy fuck, you’re the kid from the boat.”

“The what?” The soldier said in a struggled breath. He looked like he was finally managing to catch his breath. 

“The crying kid on the boat,” I replied in shock.

He looked away, as if he was ashamed. As he spoke, he looked at my boots instead of me. “Yeah. That was me. That’s what everyone knows me as.” He set a nervous hand through his hair. I was surprised, even though all of us had the same haircut, his seemed bigger and more tangled. “I guess I’m never going to outlive that.”

“It’s just like high school, kid,” I assured him as another foot soldier ran past us, ignoring the man hunched over beside me.. “Pretty soon, everyone will forget that it even happened.”

The funny thing is, I never did. 

“Can you stop calling me fucking kid? I’m twenty-one.”

If I had been drinking something, I would have spit it out like an old slapstick movie. But his eyes, hazel and hollow, told me that my laughter wasn’t deserved. “Oh, I’m so sorry, kid. Oh, I’m sorry,  I meant uh….guy.”

“Moritz. Just call me Moritz please,” He wiped a sweaty hand off on his pants. “Or Stiefel, I guess. People around here tend to go by last names. It’s easier.”

“I can call you Moritz if you want,” I shook the hand he offered me. “No one else really has that name.”

I would say he was emaciated if I hadn’t known that you had to  be able to have some level of physical fitness if you wanted to join. Maybe he was just a real late bloomer.  “Alrighty, Moritz. Are you trying to finish your run?”

“I only just started,” He gasped in response. “But thanks for the offer, uh….”

“My name’s Hanschen Rilow. I’m from New York, Manhattan to be specific. I assume you are too.”

Moritz began walking in the direction that I had been running. He still spoke like he was being continuously surprised. “Actually, I’m from Brooklyn.”

“Get those asses moving, Rilow and co.” A familiar syrupy voice called out. A few moments later, Bobby rushed past us. “You’re gonna lose your momentum!” 

Moritz watched the man run in front of us until he was around the bend. “Wow,” he mused as soon as the Bobby was out of sight. “What an ass.”

I already thought more of Moritz than I would think of Bobby in a million years. 


	3. We had no homefront, we had no soft soap

You know you’re doing something wrong if it takes a month for ten of your men to die of Malaria. While the healthy went on training and patrolling and eating and laughing and playing football, the sick remained quarantined in a tent almost as big as the one we had all slept in.

We had all become skittish as soon as the first few died, obsessively cleaning our sheets and scrubbing our hands after any interaction with another soldier. So much as a a cough made everyone else tense and make any excuse to get out of the vicinity as fast as possible.

I had seen the infected. Everyone had seen them. It was hard NOT to see them. And the sight of them, squirming and vomiting and sweating through their thin sheets, was enough to make the toughest recruit uneasy.

The officers must’ve been uneasy too. As they had called in another group of temporary medics, most of them being nurses or doctors back at home. They arrived slowly, one or two every few day. And all of their appearances were met with gratefulness and anxiety.

“Last nurse is coming today,” Melchior updated me as we went down the breakfast line, being served hard hot-cakes and bland potatoes. It was just thankful we had found ourselves on a base, unlike the poor G.I.’s out on the frontlines. At least we had hot food and sort of running water, not meat chunks in tomato sauce for breakfast lunch and dinner. Corporal Smith didn’t hesitate to tell long winded stories of his time out in the field. 

“Huh? Really?” I sighed and took the cup of black coffee offered to me. I had always personally taken it with cream, but I was too afraid to ask for some. “I didn’t know there were so many guy-nurses.”

From behind me, Moritz’s small and whiny voice spoke up. He sounded like he was always scared about getting caught doing something he shouldn’t be doing. “There aren’t. That’s why we’ve only got three. They scrounge up all they could.” A moment later, he put his hand out, turning down the cup of coffee held out to him. “No thanks. Coffee hurts my digestion.”

Melchior and I managed to stifle out laughter as the three of us wandered to one of the temporary tables they had set up. On the other end were a couple more Privates, joking about how Baker looked like a bulldog. 

“I wish they’d bring in some women nurses,” Melchior muttered into his room temperature food. “I could really see a lady sometime soon. I’ve practically forgot how that half of the species looks.”

Moritz sighed in agreement. “Yeah. That would be real nice. To have a girl around here. It would sure boost my moral.”

“Y-Yeah…” I managed to stammer out in faux-agreement. Truly, I hadn’t found it too hard to go without women. I missed Thea and my mom, but that was about it. I hadn’t been pining half as much as these two must’ve been. “I really...could use one...A lady, that is.”

There awkward glances only lasted a brief moment of two. I had been well known back at home for being a charmer. Apparently I had suddenly turned into a fool with a stutter. Luckily, Melchior turned his razor-like tongue on Moritz.“ The jungle must be no place for women or your poor tummy, Moritz.”

“Shove a cock in it, Gabor,” Was all Moritz said in reply, cutting off that conversation before it had gone much farther. Thank God. 

When said nurse arrived, there was a crowd around the gate. Some of the men were sent to guard the gate, making sure no one else slipped in with them. Others had been the men sent early that morning to fetch him from the harbor and bring him here. But most were just crowded around to see the new face. A month with the same boring, poorly shaven, grubby faces had gotten boring. A new person on the base meant someone else to know. Someone else to kick around.

“He’s not much,” Bobby assured me as I approached the crowd. He was walking away from them with his condescending face. “I mean, not much to look at, at least.”

“I’m not trying to find something to look at, Maler. But thanks.”

Bobby stopped himself from completely walking past me, looking over his shoulder to add. “Just don’t get your hopes up.”

Hopes? What hopes?

My only hope was that I wouldn’t die before I got back home because of a couple bugs. That was my only hope about this kid.

The first I saw of him was an unfamiliar head of short brown hair over the others. This guy must’ve been tall. As more soldiers turned around and walked back to whatever they had been doing, my view of the new guy got better. 

He was speaking to the Sergeant, who had to crane his neck upwards to look him in the eye. This kid was skinny but not scrawny like Moritz. He had a lean muscle to him which bulged from his uniform as he carried his heavy backpack. He had a young face, freckled and flushed like a schoolgirl who just told her crush she liked him. And big smile  causing cavernous dimples in either cheek.

“Yes, sir,” He nodded to the Sergeant. His voice was light and airy, almost feminine. He sounded out of breath. Immediately, one of our engineers, Otto, leaned over to me. 

“Oh. I get it now. He’s a fairy. That’s why he’s a guy-nurse,” He muttered with a soft chuckle. I laughed harshly, keeping my eyes on the man. His skin was tan, probably from hopping from camp to base to base to camp for the past few months. He kept on his toothy smile while the cold faced officer spoke to him, 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I whispered to Otto. 

The round faced boy smiled back mischievously as the Sergeant looked around the crowd. “Don’t play dumb, Rilow. You know.”

Before I could respond, Baker’s loud voice called out to us. “Lammermier!” he barked, making Otto jump. “You seem to be free enough to sit around and chat. You must be free enough to give Robel a tour.”

“Y-Yes, Si-” Otto began, but I was quick to leap to his defense. 

“Lammermeier has an important job to do, Sir. I can give him a tour,” I said, trying my best to not sound as nervous as Baker made me. 

He took a few steps towards me, glaring down at me. Maybe he noticed that my hair had grown out an extra inch or I had left the top two buttons on my shirt unbuttoned. “What’s your name, Private?” He ordered in the disguise as an question.

“Rilow. Private Hanschen Rilow, Sir.” 

He stood back upright, turing on his heels to look at the Robel guy. “Follow Rilow. Your bed is cot 17 in the second tent. Report to lunch at twelve-thirty.”

“Yes, Sir.” I replied and turned, walking back through the crowd. I could hear Robel following me, cutting through the quickly dispersing group.

“Th-Thank you, Private,” He said as soon as he caught up with me, keeping pace with my quick walk. 

I looked over my shoulder and tilted my head up to look him in the eye. His eyes were big and brown, like a deer’s in the headlights of a car. “It’s nothing. My name is Hanschen by the way. Or Rilow if you wanna be like that.”

“Then thank you, Private Rilow.”

“Just Rilow is good, kid,” I assured and lead him to the track. “This is a fire support base, as you probably know. So all we really have is artillery for all the infantry within a ten mile circular radius. It’s mostly a bunch of nerd engineers and we’re just here to make sure no one dies.” 

“So am I,” Robel assured in a high pitched voice. “Except you’re ok with killing someone for it.”

As I watched the chump engineers fixing up a broken Howitzer we got this morning, I  defended my position. “Whoa, there. I’m not just ‘ok’ with killing anyone.”

“Of course you are. If you weren’t you wouldn’t be armed to the teeth any given moment.” Robel spoke as if he were teaching me a lesson on myself. “That’s why I became a medic. So I could object. So I wouldn’t have to kill anyone.”

As the two of us walked towards the dining tent, I scoffed. “Well, if you wanted to object so badly, why didn’t you just run off when you were drafted?”

“Easy,” Robel scoffed and locked his eyes on a pair of soldiers just off of perimeter duty, coming towards us jogging and joking. I noticed the both of them look over Robel and go back to shuffling past with their heads down. When they had passed us, he continued. “I love this country. That’s why. Also, I just got out of nursing school back in California.”

Ahh. That explains the voice. 

That was also what made him different from Melchior. Melchior hated this country so he went in to the army to get it over with. Robel actually loved this country so he did what he could to fight. 

“Is that where you’re from? California?” I asked, turning to lead him towards the medical tent that he would come to know. 

Robel nodded, a faint smile growing back over his face. All of his features were thin and soft, from his long, freckled face to his long, freckled hands. “Yeah. That’s where I left my mother.”

“A friend of mine went to San Francisco every summer,” I suggested. I almost shocked myself by calling Melchior my friend. I guess when you only speak to two guys out of a hundred something they become your friends. “But I guess they’re not that similar.”

Robel shook his head. “Not really. At least, I wouldn’t think so,” He looked down towards me, his eyes finally taking me in for the first time since we met. His eyes were easily the kindest I had seen since I came. I had felt warm to be under his gaze, like my insides were made of warm oatmeal. 

Very rarely was it nice to feel like oatmeal. 

“What about you?” He asked when he must’ve noticed me blushing and looking up at him blankly. “Who did you leave behind?”

I thought over all the goodbyes I had gotten at my party a week before I had left. They had hugged me and cried over me and promised to write and send me packages. Do I bring up my family? Thea? The gaggle of girls that had all taken turns asking me to every Sadie’s dance the last four years? The guys who had been causing trouble with me since we were toddlers?

“I left my best friend,” I said after a long pause. “Max. He left a month before me. Wasn’t even able to give a proper goodbye. He just came by one night and told me he would be gone in the morning.” I recalled the thought of Max showing up at my front door right after dinner. His bright ginger hair looked like it was on fire in the light of the setting sun. “He was there one day and gone the next. He’s flies helicopters, that’s his specialty. So he’s always in and out of battles. Not like me. I just sit on my hands all day, whistling and waiting for something to happen.”

“Where’s he now?” Asked Robel, his eyes wide.

My lack of response must’ve told him something, So he was quiet as we walked past the tent, where I pointed out where he’d be sleeping. 

“Are you from New York?” Robel asked suddenly, breaking the tense air between us.

For a second I was shocked at his dedication, only to realize that I had spoken with a stereotypical New York accent since I was old enough to speak. “I am. I suppose it’s easy to figure out.”

He smiled down at me again, making me acutely aware of my awkward walk and how uncomfortably I held onto my gun and how gross my hair must’ve been after not showering for a few days. To cope, I looked away, seeing the various men looking at us over their shoulders and pointing out Robel to their friends. The base was so boring that any new face made people double take. 

When Robel looked away, I noticed that we had already arrived at the the quarantine tent. Time seemed to have passed much faster than normal. “Here’s where I have to leave you,” I shrugged.  “I’ll have to see you around, Robel.”

“If you want, you can call me Ernst,” He replied, the smile breaking over her face like the sun breaks over a hill. “That’s my name, Ernst Robel.”

“If you’re going to call me Rilow, I’ll stick to Robel,” Was all I said, making Robel giggle a bit under his breath. The laugh was soft and warm, fitting right in with the rest of him. I wanted to wrap myself up in it and-

No.

“I’ll see you, kid,” I quickly spat out and rushed back to my tent before he could say anything else and before I could think anything else.

“Hanschen!” Melchior laughed when I entered our tent. I paced around my cot for a few moments before calming myself and crashing down onto the hard surface. “Man,  you look like you just saw someone get killed in front of you. What happened?”

In a voice, more panicked than I’d like it to be, I responded. “Nah, i’m great. I’m fine. I’m going to the firing range.”

“How’d you like the new gu-”

“He’s good. Great even,” I assured as I left the tent. Before I did, I turned to Melchior, guitar in lap staring at me with the dumbest smile on his face, like he knew something I didn’t. “When I get back, can you be playing anything else besides the Rolling Stones?”


	4. And we were so gung ho to lay down our lives

My mother grew peonies every spring. They came up just when we’d get off of school for spring break and they’d be there until we went back to school after summer. They came in all sorts of shades of pink and white and red. But my mother’s favorites were the yellow ones. She would always sing to them as she worked in the garden, giving them extra care to make them biggest and stronger than the others. 

So I was surprised to see two yellow peonies had been dried in between the folds of the paper. I knew how much my mother loved her yellow peonies didn’t want to part with them no matter what. And she especially didn’t want to pick them.

“What’s that, Hanschen?” Moritz asked from his seat on Melchior’s cot. When I looked up I saw him pointing at the thin, fragile flowers in my hand. 

Still staring at the flowers, I sighed. “My mother sent them to me. They’re her favorite flowers. They’d be in the middle of their bloom right now.” Looking down at the colorful, dried blooms, I felt what I hadn’t felt since I first left home. I wanted to be back more than ever, holding my small mother in my arms and tell her that I missed her as much as she missed me.  Instead, I was stuck miles away like a castaway. “I really hope she’s doing alright.”

Robel nodded, leaning forwards ever so slightly. “They’re probably doing just fine. You must be missing them a whole lot.”

Before I could reply that:  yes, I was missing them more than someone drowning misses breathing, I was cut off by Melchior’s loud voice. “Mail day!” He yelled and sat down beside me. “What did you all get?”

“I got a letter from my mother and my friend back at home, Martha,” Moritz held out the few envelopes. “My mother sent me some soap, which is kinda neat.”

I looked over the small bar of lavender soap Moritz had in his hands and held out my treasures. “My mother and my sister wrote me. But my sister sent me a pack of cards to pass the time.” I flipped through the papers one more time, double checking. “My best friend didn’t write. But he’s probably busy.”

“I got letters from,” Melchior announced proudly. “My father, my old math teacher, my sister, Hanschen’s sister, and Wendla.”

“Who’s Wendla?” Moritz asked, ignoring the real pressing issue.

“Why the hell is my sister writing you?”

Melchior, of course, chose to ignore my question and focussed in on Robel. “She’s only the most perfect girl in the whole wide world. Let’s see what she said.” He tore the envelope open and began reading out loud. “Dear Melchior, I miss you more with each passing day.”

I neglected to listen to Melchior, choosing instead to read what my mother had written me. It was still very hard to focus when Melchior’s voice was booming next to him.

_ Hopefully these flowers will have put you in a better mood than you will be in soon. We miss you, Hansi. And we wish you could’ve been here yesterday for the news. _

“I miss your touch and your kiss so much, I keep waking up and thinking that you’re laying in bed with me.”

“Melchior,” Robel chuckles uncomfortably. “Are you sure you should be reading this outloud?”

_ Mrs. von Trenk came by to tell us right when your father had put on the game. You may have heard by now if there are any friend’s of Max’s at the base with you. But I hope it didn’t break you up too much if you heard. I hope someone was there to help you through it. _

“I feel like I’ve been climbing uphill since you left, Melchi. I can’t wait to have you back here. These past few months make the rest of the year feel like nothing. I could wait another ten years if I had to. Anything to get you back here.”

_ Max was declared Missing In Action last week. He and another pilot went missing last week a few miles off of the coast. I wish I could tell you where they were going but they won’t let anyone know. All we know is that no one has heard from him or seen him since Tuesday. _

“Not kissing you every morning is-”

“Shut up, Melchior, for fucks sake. Please just shut the fuck up!” I spat out, much louder than I would have liked. I wanted to keep reading the letter but my vision had become too blurry. Instead, I just scanned the rest of the paper over and over. Occasionally, through the blur, the word ‘Max’ would stick out like it had been written in bold.

_ ….MAX would want you to know…. _

_ ….you and MAX… _

_ ….MAX loved you… _

_...be strong for MAX… _

“What’s wrong, Hanschen?” Robel’s voice asked, fairy-like in gentleness. 

I opened my mouth to speak, but all that could come out was a sob and a groan that sounded like, “My beeehhshht….”

The other men stared at me like I was some sort of freak in a side of the road circus tent. But instead of having three heads or lobster hands, I had my face in my hands and my shoulders were shaking with sobs. The letter fell from my lap to the ground at my feet, the peonies following suit.

“D-Do you need anything?” Moritz said softly. The pale man stuck his hand out to touch my knee. No. I didn’t need sympathy. That was the last thing I needed. 

“No,” I managed to stammer out. After the single syllable left my mouth, I was choked up once more by the fist sized lump in my throat. 

Don’t let them see you shake. 

After an uncomfortable pause, Melchior cleared his throat. “Hanschen, I didn’t know you would get to worked up about Wendla’s letter. But if I knew I wouldn’t have read it.”

“That’s not why I’m worked up, you fuck!” Finally shot out of my mouth. I reached down, picking up the letter and throwing it into Melchior’s lap. “He’s M.I.A. That’s why.”

“Who is?” Moritz asked. 

Don’t let them see you shake.

Although the name was hard to get out, I pushed it out. I managed to stop shaking after a few more minutes. “Max. His name is Max.”

Melchior looked at me with a tilted head, like a dog wondering why his owner was shouting. “Who?”

I didn’t respond. I didn’t know how to. Max was practically everything. Do I describe him in first grade when he came up to me asking if I had any red crayons he could use. Do I describe my ride to school every day from sophomore year on? Do I describe the boy who dragged up to Times Square on New Years to watch the ball drop? Do I describe the handsome ginger boy that every girl since sixth grade had a crush on? Do I describe my first kiss, awkward and passionate on my bedroom floor my freshman year?

Do I describe the body probably at the bottom of the ocean?

“Oh God,” I groaned again, feeling the tears well up once more before feeling a soft touch around my wrist.

Upon looking down, I saw Robel looking back at me. One of his hands, free of callousness and gentle, was wrapped around my wrist. It was warm, like a mother touching her sick child’s forehead.  I nodded into his understanding eyes.

“That’s his best friend,” Robel explained to the others before turning back to me. “Do they have any idea where he is?”

My voice cracked like a fifteen year old boy as I continued. “The ocean. He went missing over the ocean.”

While the other two went dead silent, Robel stood and reached out to touch my shoulder. It was as if his touch was holding me to the ground. I still felt like I was floating away. “I’m so sorry, Handchen. If there’s anything you want me to-”

“No, no,no,” I noticed my voice cracking as I spoke, like it had already screamed it raw without even yelling. “I don’t need anything.”

Robel’s voice became much quieter, leaning closer to me to softly say, “Everyone needs something. But it’s alright, Hanschen.”

A few more deep breaths and I had centered myself once more. I then realized that I was standing with robel before the other two. He saw them looking up in a sort of shock. They seemed both confused and sympathetic, which is exactly what I didn’t want from anyone. 

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to…” As I moved to sit back down, I noticed a soft crunch beneath my feet. When I looked down I saw the dried peonies, crumbling beneath my boots. “Oh no.”

Robel bent down to pick up the flowers and probably went to give them to me, but I was too busy collecting the papers and shoving them under my bed. “Hanschen calm down,” Melchior insisted, guestring for me to sit back down.

“No, I need to go. I’m going on a run.” I insisted. I rushed past Robel’s open hands offering the flower pieces and out to the sticky humid air. It still felt better than being in the tent.

Don’t let them see you shake. 


	5. Our arms were heavy but our bellies were tight

Apparently, we didn’t do enough training back in basic. According to our platoon leader, we had to keep training even though we hadn’t seen any enemy soldier yet. Not even one guy who got lost. So why on Earth were we training like we were going to be attacked with all the strength of the Viet Cong in a matter of minutes.

“Move!” Sargeant Arnold’s voice came from his megaphone. As he called, the rest of us moved out from behind the rocks and up to the next row of boulders. We had spent a good half of last week moving these rocks, making sure they were exactly three meters apart from each other for us to duck and hide behind. As we ran, the heavy backpacks we carried made it feel like I was moving at a snail’s pace. We had guns and ammunition strapped to us like the grunts out in the boonies. 

“Fire!” The men on the other side friend. They  hesitated for a moment before firing at us, sending tracer rounds over our heads.

We arrived at the next row of rocks, breathless and throwing ourselves  to the safety behind the boulders. I hit my head on it while ducking for cover. Maybe I was getting too into our fake battle. The helmet I wore stopped most of the pain from the blow, but it still hurt like hell. 

“Are you alright?” Moritz’s whiny voice asked from beside me. I looked over to see the other man in a uniform and helmet that was definitely far too big for him and made him look like a kid in his father’s clothing. “That looked like it hurt.”

“Move!” 

“Yeah!” I shouted and jumped up from my spot. My head fucking hurt. And the running made it hurt and throb even more.

I arrived at the next boulder only a seconds before Moritz did. It felt like he was a lost puppy following me around in hope for shelter. “Are you sure?”

“Fire!” 

“Yes I’m sure!”

I watched the tracers blaze across the sky above us in the hope to steady this throbbing pain. 

“Hanschen,” He panted, eyes fearful like this were an actual battle. “How are you not...Dying?”

I shrugged him off, temple pressed to the rough stone. “How the hell did you get in if you can’t run?”

“I can, just not well.”

“Move!”

“Wait, Hanschen!” Moritz cried out from behind me as I leapt up. From over my shoulder, I saw Moritz fumbling to push back his rifle, as it was too big for his body and kept hitting his knees. I decided it was better to have Moritz pissed at me than the Sergeant and jumped over the rock to head to the next row.

I was barely over the boulder when the sound of a sharp snap of a gunshot cut through the day. Barely a millisecond later,  I felt acute pain in my calf. 

I still managed to get to the next row before the pain began to take over. It felt like I had been shot. Probably because I was. I looked down to see a hole in my leg, blood flowing freely from the wound, which now ached with sharp twinges of pain. 

“CEASE FIRE! CEASE FIRE!” Arnold boomed. The sound of the shot made all other soldiers stop their hiding and turned to me, looking at me like I was dying in front of them. 

“Oh my god, are you okay?!” Moritz’s panicked voice said above me. He was standing with a pale, fearful face. “Hanschen, I’m so sorry!”

The others crowded around me to see what was going on. Many looked at me to see if I was okay. Others just looked at my leg like this was the most interesting thing to happen since we got here.

Probably because it was.

“Does it hurt?” Moritz asked, which was probably the dumbest thing I ever heard. Of course it hurt, I was sprawled out on the ground with a bullet in my leg. Not excruciating, but pretty damn close.

I went to respond, but I suddenly saw the looming figure of Sergeant Arnold cut through the crowd of bystanders. “What the hell happened here! What smart-ass didn’t think to take the bullets out of their goddamn gun.”

“I’m so-”

I cut of Moritz by sitting upright a bit more, my voice coming out rough and cracked. “I did. It was my own gun, Sir.”

Everyone who had seen what really happened looked at me with suspicious eyes. But no one said anything. They all just looked at me and Moritz like we were characters in a drama. Moritz’s face was shocked, but he remained quiet as well. “This is what you get,” Arnold said, turning to the other men in the circle. “This is precisely what happens when you disobey orders. You two!” He pointed at Moritz and another private standing above me. “You take Rilow to the Medic tent. Then report back to your barracks.”

I wanted to stand up myself, but Moritz didn’t let me. He and the other reached out to help me up, supporting me the entire way. “I can do it,” I assured them. I took one step forward and nearly collapsed the second any pressure was put on my right leg. I shouted in pain, my face twisting and contorting. I was lucky to have the other two behind me, holding me up.

The walk to the Medic’s Tent hurt like hell. I limped along with them, my leg throbbing in angry, sharp pain. I muttered propahities under my breath as we walked through camp. Many faces popped out to watch me walk by. This must’ve been so entertaining to these fucking nobodies.

This injury made me bitter.

Arriving at the Medic’s Tent made me feel like the healthiest bastard in the world. While the other patients grunted and rolled around in their own sweat, I was at least standing. 

“Hanschen!” A voice called from the back of the tent. Bobby came rushing towards me, his arms open. “What the hell happened, you’re bleeding!”

I felt like laughing in his face. But I didn’t have the strength to fight the man at this time. He helped Moritz lead me to one of the only empty cots. “I was shot,” I explained in a grunt.

“How? Who shot you!” Bobby gasped back.

Moritz, always the honest man, went to respond. But I glared at him to tell him to shut the fuck up. “Me. I did. I forgot to take my bullets out.” I lied. From across the tent, my eyes locked on Robel, tending to a patient parallel to me. He was watching me carefully as I explained my fake story. 

Bobby shook his head and moved to look at my leg. “We’re going to need you to take off your pa-”

“No! Cut them off!” Robel stated from across the room. “At least, cut off the fabric around the calf.” When Bobby didn’t move, the smaller mad glared blankly. “I’m sorry are you the registered nurse? Go get some scissors then make yourself useful and tend to the others.”

Bobby obeyed and Robel rushed to my side. “Rilow, listen to me. Are you feeling lightheaded?”

I only realized that my headache was gone when he asked me this. “Yeah. I’m fine.”

“You're Not losing that much blood,” Robel said as Bobby returned with the scissors. “You should be fine. Are you in pain?”   
Just as he said this, the nurse began to the cut pants off of me a the knee. Upon moving my leg ever so slightly, I let out a pained gasp. “Yeah, I’m in fucking pain!”

“Don’t be an ass about this, Rilow. Please,” He hushed and went back to cutting. “That’s good. It means you haven’t gone into shock. Now get ready.”

I braced myself but definitely not enough. He lifted my leg to look at it, making it feel like needles were shooting up and down my body. “Fuck!” 

Robel chose to ignore me and observed the wound. “I see an clean entrance wound and a clean exit wound. That’s good. It means that hopefully there’s no pieces in you. And you managed to avoid any bone so you’re a very good accidental shot. “ He moved ran to the cabinet a few feet away after a cheeky wink.

How did this kid know.   
“Is he gonna be okay?” Moritz asked when Robel returned with a pressure bandage. 

Ernst chuckled and began to wrap my leg, “He’s already okay. This is just a precaution.”

Morphine calmed me a few minutes later, making Robel’s job of disinfecting and treating my wound much easier. Even after Moritz left and the dinner bell had rang, I remained sedated in my comfortable cot.

When I saw the ill men around me starting to fall asleep, I realized how long I had been in here. And this whole time I had kept my eyes on Robel, who was working tirelessly to tend to everyone. When the sun had gone down and the tent was only lit by dim, yellow lamps, he seemed to notice my gaze. The slim figure stopped what he was doing in the center of the room to stare back at me. “Can I help ya, Rilow?” He mused in his gentle, nurturing voice. 

“Nah I’m good,” I muttered, letting my eyes trace his body. He had a pile of linen in his arms, cleaning up after all the men who had been in and out through the day. I was shocked to see that he was basically the only one keeping this tent afloat. Sure, other medics like Bobby floated in and out, but Robel had been there since I arrived. And I hadn’t seen him sit down once. “Aren’t you tired?”

“Not at all!” Assured the other man. But the way he sighed that assurance told me otherwise. 

I sleepily scooted over to the left side of my bed. “Come here, you need to sit down.”

Shaking his head, Robel went to turn off the lamp above a sleeping engineer whose eye was injured by taking a metal shard to the face. “I can’t. I have work to do.”

“I need my bandages changed,” I insisted, my statement being met with a soft chuckle.

“Who are you to tell me how to do my job?”

All I did was smile. The same smile that I did for yearbook pictures and job interviews and when I saw a freshman girl staring at me in the hallway. But Robel didn’t seem to be so affected by it. Instead, he moved towards the supply cabinet, over his shoulder sighing, “That smile can’t charm me, Rilow.”

“I'm not trying to charm you. I just need my bandages changed.”

He returned a few moments later with the bandages in his grasp. He looked around to make sure everyone was asleep before sitting on the edge of my cot. Slowly, he began to unwrap the white gauze, pressing on the wound ever so softly. 

Hissing in pain, I looked at Robel with begging eyes. “I think I need more-"

“Absolutely not,” insisted Robel before I could finish. “That's how people get addicted. You're a soldier, suck it up.”

With a few more winces, I watched him unravel the gauze and redress my wound. “You think it'll scar?”

He looked at me like I was an idiot, which made me feel sick to see him thinking poorly of me. “You lost a 2 centimeter by 5 centimeter chunk of your leg. Of course it's gonna scar. I wouldn't be surprised if you can't walk for another week.”

My heart stopped suddenly. I was more scared than when I actually had a bullet go through me. “Do you think they'll send me home?” I asked in a panic.

He thought for a moment, then shook his head. “No. You're not on the front lines. I'm sure the base can withstand to have you bedridden for a week.” I let out a long sigh of ease. Robel sent the sweetest smile my way. “Now brace yourself, Rilow.”

As he rewrapped the wound, I watched carefully. His gentle touch made the pain subside a bit. It could have hurt a lot more, but his hands were soft and touched me and my calf with such carefulness.

“Your hands...They're so soft,” I muttered quietly. Just enough for Robel to hear, but no one else. All the others were asleep anyway. “It's like you're…. I dunno. Like you're making pottery.”

This made Robel chuckle and look at me with bemused eyes. “I was actually an artist back at home. But not pottery. I liked to paint.”

“I thought you were a nurse.”

“Well, art doesn't pay the bills, now does it?” Robel looked at me with soft, laughing eyes. “How does it feel?” 

Shrugging, I sighed,” It hurts a lot less than it did before. So you’ve worked your magic successfully.” Robel kept working until the fresh gauze was secured and protecting my calf. I could see the smile on his face even if he tried to hid it by turning away. “Thank you, Robel.”

“Ya know….you can call me Ernst,” He said as he stood and took the dirty wrappings away. 

“Ernst,” I repeated softly, watching him walk away with a sort of bounce. “Ernst. That’s a pretty name.”

Ernst turned on his heel, casting a playful glare. “Pretty? I’m not pretty, I’m manly.”

All I could do is laugh, tucking myself into the covers I hadn’t moved from in hours. “Sure. Manly. Whatever you say.”


	6. We had no cameras to shoot the landscape

Staring at the barbed wire fence for three hours can really make you feel like a animal in a cage. Towards the end of my time on perimeter duty, I began to worry if the fence was meant to keep enemies out or to keep me in.

I grew jealous over the past two months of the men on the other side of the fence. If they weren’t fighting, they were out on the town. But on the base we were simultaneously too close to the North Vietnam border and too far from the cities to do anything but sit on our hands and watch the horizon. There were times, more than I would like to admit, that I grew jealous of the men in the jungles, fighting for their lives. I knew it was wrong. I knew they had it a lot harder than I ever would, playing a glorified security guard. But I was sill wishing I were on the other side of the wire.

I wanted to be like Max. Or with Max. Max had been out on the front lines, or in the skies. He owned the clouds while I just stared at them from behind this goddamn fence.

Doing nothing. 

Maybe I wished I was Max because I wanted to be at the bottom of the ocean instead of here. Or instead of him.

The harsh bell made me leave my starry-eyed daydreams about what could be happening on the other side of the wire. I saw the private ready to replace me standing at attention beside me. “Oh, thanks, kid.” I muttered. I didn’t expect a response, and I didn’t get one. But I stayed standing there for another few minutes.

“Hanschen!” Melchior cried out, speaking to me for the first time in three hours. All of which he stood no more than five yards away, as the rules called for. “It’s Sunday! Three o’clock on Sunday!”

I finally turned from the fence to see my friend bounding at me. “So?” I replied just before he got to me. 

“Mail comes on Sundays. Come on!”

I shook my head at his big, smiling face. “I think I’ll pass. I’m gonna go on a run.”

“A run? With your gimp leg?” He laughed.He looekd down at me as if I were speaking in tongues. “Come on, Thea might have written you!”

“I’ll look later.”

When I turned to limp away, Melchior didn’t try to follow. He knew better. 

It felt wrong behind this fence, but it felt better than being behidn the fence and in the bed. The six days I had spent there waiting for my leg to heal were probably the second worst part of my time in the war. I had never felt so restricted, like the bullet had taken out a piece of my leg and my freedom. 

But for some reason, I decided the best place to go on my first day free was back to the Medic’s tent. Because I knew only one other person who wasn’t going to pick up their mail and wasn’t on duty.

“Heya, Ernst.”

The tall man turned from where he was, putting a pillow beneath some poor sick engineer’s head. “Oh. Rilow. What are you doing here? Does your leg hurt?”

I looked from his freckled face to the wrapping around my calf buldging from underneath my pants.  “No. It feels just fine.” I wandered farther in to sit down on one of the empty cots. I looked around at the sea of empty cots much like it. “Huh. So I’m guessing you’re doing your job well. There’s practically no one here.”

“I do what I can. I think everyone’s learning how to finally take car of themselves,” He shrugged, then acted as if he suddenly remembered something. “Also, you’re not supposed to be in here unless you’re ill or a medic. So please get out.”

I stayed in my seat, smiling contentedly at him even though he was glaring back. “My leg is acting up.”

“You just said it wasn’t.”

I shrugged defeatedly but still didn’t move. Ernst just shrugged and went on with his work, digging throught the medicine cabinet for something. He ignored me, which was always the first step. 

“How was the work today?” I asked after a moment or two. I didn’t care about the small handful of men in there, either resting or sleeping or reading their letters. Because they didn’t seem to care too much about me.

Ernst cast a look over his shoulder, looking me over as if he were surprised to see me still there. He really shouldn’t be through. He should be shocked if I weren’t, seeing that I had only spent one day of the past week out of this tent. “Nah. It’s been slow,” he said, speaking into the cabinet. “What about you? We haven’t been attacked yet?”

“Not on my watch,” I snickered as he studied a bottle of pills. He walked to the bed of a man who had been coughing and sweating bullets. 

“Here ya go, O’Conner,” He smiled at the man. “Take one of these and see if it helps at all.”

As the man took the pill, Ernst turned to me and pointed at a table in the corner. “Rilow. Can you go into my bag and fetch my journal out of the front pocket.” When I got up and limped to the table, I looked over at him with begging eyes. “It’s the blue backpack.”

The backpack was beat up, faded like he had taken it everywhere with him. I reached in and pulled out an even more beat up leather-bound notebook. It used to be glazed and shiny red leather. But now the corners were scuffed and the covers were stained with what I assumed coffee rings. I waved it above me playfully. “Hey, Ernst, buddy, catch!”   
Ernst had to jump to make sure it didn’t hit the poor son-of-a-bitch coughing in the bed. He tried not to, but he still smiled just a tiny bit. I only looked at him for a second before my eyes moved to the couple of papers that had fluttered from the pages of the book as it flew through the air.

Grunting, I slowly managed to work myself to the spot on the gorund where they fell. As Ernst muttered to himself, writing in his journal what he was giving the patient, I noticed they weren’t pieces of paper, but pictures.  Well, one picture. The other was a small print of a painting. 

The painting I recognized from they copy of Fine Art Magazine Thea kept on her bedside table. It was on of Van Gogh’s, I knew that much. The one of the flowerbed and all  the petty purple flowers.

The picture was unfamiliar, so  I was much more interested. It was a black and white of a youngman standing next to a bike. He seemed to be on a beach, with his hair blowing in all sorts of directions. It took me a moment of two to realize it was Ernst. He wore a pair of shorts and a loose short sleeved shift, showing off his toned and tan limbs. He had a wide smile on his face, like this was the happiest he’d ever been. He had a pair of circular sunglasses on, hiding his eyes but I imagined them being bright as usual. He seemed to have the faded blue backpack on his back, showing that it wasn’t too long ago. On the back read in faint pencil marks: ‘ Naples, Summer ‘63’.

“Last time I checked, those weren't yours,” Ernst stood before me with an open, expectant palm. Like he was an owner demanding the dog let go of the bone. 

But I held on tight to the artifacts. “You were in Italy, huh?” I mused, staring down at Ernst’s smiling face. It's like he knew I was looking at him and grinning, telling me it's alright to stare at something so dazzling.

As soon as this thought came to my mind, I shoved the picture away from me and into Ernst’s hand. He seemed a bit shocked at my sudden movement, but accepted it nonetheless. I couldn't keep thinking things like that. 

“Yeah. I used to spend all my summers there.” He explained, staring at the picture wistfully. “That's where my mother's family is from.”

I laughed and handed over the second piece of paper. “And van Gogh?”

Ernst nodded, looking at me with the sweetest smile a man could have. “You recognize his work?” I nodded, neglecting to tell him that my little sister was an art kid wannabe. “He's my biggest inspiration. The colors and the brush strokes just….” He sighed and with a final happy glance, tucked both items back into his journal. “This book is supposed to be just for academic use but...it's nice to be a bit sentimental. Don't ya think?”

I thought back to the drawing I had in my wallet. It was folded up and wrinkled, but the pencil was still legible. Along with the cursive ‘M.V.T’ in the corner. “Yeah. I suppose so.”

Ernst walked past me and to his backpack, putting the book into its rightful place. “Thanks for your help, Rilow. But don't you have mail to go  pick up?”

“Don't you?” Was all I could think to rebuttal with. It was childish, but managed to shake Ernst off. He sat up on the table with the sort of dreamy expression he always seemed to have. As I strained to walk towards him, I explained further. “I really don't feel like hearing anything from back home.”

“Well have you been writing them?”

I shook my head. “Nothing to write about.”

Ernst knew I was right,  so he just stared at me with his big brown eyes. It was like he could see right into me. Like he was reading my mind and knew what I felt before I could even try to decipher the tightness in my chest and the lack of blood going to my brain.

“I'm gonna go for a run.”

I was halfway out the door when Ernst called to me, stopping me in my tracks. “Not with your leg in that condition. The fact that you're walking is a miracle. Don't push it.” He ordered, his soft voice going into ‘nurse mode’. Which was still soft, but much more threatening.

I laughed his warning off, waving my hand over my shoulder and replying, “Don't mother me. I joined the army to get away from that.”

As I left, I swore to God, if he were real, that I could hear him say, “See you, Hanschen.”

I actually did run. Or try to run. It was my version of physical therapy, pushing myself until I felt like a firing squad had let loose on my leg and I was blacking out. I always thought that whatever didn't kill me made me stronger. I was wrong on that account,  but it can't get much worse now. 

I stumbled recklessly around camp for another hour, the same men I used to pass with ease passing me three or four times on my first lap. They looked at me with pity. Word around the bunker was that I was becoming a hermit after my injury. But no one had snitched to any of the higher ups that it was really Moritz’s gun, so I was happy.

I limped until dinner came, then managed to make it to my sleeping quarters before absolutely passing out from exhaustion and pain.

But when I fell onto my cot, I felt something sharp poking into my ribs like a fucking knife.

“Jesus Christ,” I hissed and reached beneath me for the small item.

It was a cassette. A Doors album. I wasn't sure which one, cause Thea was the big Doors fsn, not me.  But I saw a letter from my sister attached to it. So I wasn't surprised.

“Oh, I was supposed to tell you,” Bobby’s voice dropped from a few feet away. “The new medic kid dropped that off for you. Told me to be sure you got it.”

I pressed the tape to my chest, heaving and soaked through with sweat. All I could think to do was hold it there, right over my heartbeat and smile to myself.

“Christ, Hanschen. Don't blow your load over it.”


	7. We passed the hash pipe and played our Doors tapes

“Oi! Hanschen!” Melchior yelled, far too loud for only being five feet away. I heard his shout over the music playing in my ears, so I took my headphones off and looked up at him. “Oh, thank God, you’re still up!” He muttered, leaning forward eagerly.

I hushed him, but that didn’t stop him from laughing at me loudly. “What are you up to, blondie?”

I looked around at the sleeping men around us and hissed back in response. “I can’t sleep. Why the hell are you up?”

Melchior extended his hand, holding out what seemed to be a cigarette. But it looked poorly rolled and sloppy. The cigarette didn’t shock me. Sure, they technically weren’t allowed. But tons of guys snuck them in and none of the officers seemed to give a shit. “Come on a walk with me, Hanschen,” He said in a sly, malicious tone. If I hadn’t known him any better, I would have been scared he was going to stab me when I stood up.

Knowing Melchior, I was still scared he was going to stab me. 

I stopped my cassette player and slowly stood up. All the man who were able to sleep at night were fast asleep, like I should have been. The rest were on duty, probably also asleep knowing them.

“I don’t smoke,” I whispered to Melchior as I stuffed my feet into my boots. Melchior didn’t care and at this point, neither did I. I just needed to get out of that tent. So I followed Melchior out of the tent and into the night. 

I had been on night perimeter before. It meant that you kept your eyes on the dark skyline and didn’t give a shit about what the privates got into around you. It was them getting in trouble, not you. So you let them run amuck.

So not a single man turned around to see what we were doing as we wandered around the base. Neither of us said much. There wasn’t much to say between Melchior and I. I knew he had a big mouth. He knew I didn’t stand bullshit. So we just walked to the farthest point of the base, the firing range. Not a single soul besides one poor fucker on perimeter could see us.

“Your leg feeling much better?” He asked as we sat atop one of the targets. As he spoke, Melchior lit the cigarette with a lighter pulled from his breast pocket.

I nodded, patting my calf. All that was there now was a large scar that pulsed with pain every once in a while. But over all, I hadn’t been bugged by in almost a week. “It’s just fine. Almost as good as new. All that’s gonna happen is my kids are gonna wonder how I got it.”

The curly haired boy took a drag and passed the cigarette to me. As he exhaled, I smelled the smoke and noticed that it was unlike the usual cigarettes he’d be chain smoking anytime he was off duty. It was much more pungent and smelled like Melchior when he arrived late to biology after lunch.

But I still took it from his fingers, looking over the cigarette for a moment. “This isn’t nicotine, huh?” I questioned. When all Melchior did was shrug, I put the blunt to my lips and took a drag. The smoke filled my lungs almost immediately, making me choke  and stutter on my own breath. But I managed to blow out the foul tasting smoke and not hack out a lung. “Thanks for the warning, shit wad.”

Melchior turned to me suddenly, his eyes feigning sympathy. “Oh, poor Hansi. You were always too much of a goody-two shoes to get near the stuff. I almost forgot.”

 

“No I’m fucking not,” I bit back. I knew that it was just taking the bait with Melchior. Speaking to Melchior just once was like slipping into a trap, where you would either get annoyed and leave or annoyed and pick a fight.

God, Melchior loved to fight.

So when Melchior replied, I ignored him and took another hit. “Really? Says you, Mr. Honor Roll. You’re just all fucking American, Hanschen.” He said with a punch to my shoulder. I was jolted a bit, but not enough to respond any more. “You got that after school job at the soda shop and that high school sweetheart and the straight fucking As and-”

“Just cut the crap, Melchior,” I spat out before passing the joint back to him. With my eyes locked on the forestline, I thought back to all the times in highschool that I had thought that Melchior was a self-serving prick so far up his own ass that he thought he was always the smartest person in the room. He must’ve thought he was some sort of Holden Caulfield reincarnate. “You don’t know anything so stop acting like you do.”

He didn’t say anything back to me. He just took a drag and sat beside me. I expected him to try to get back under my skin when it suddenly hit me. My mind began to speed up, like I was watching the world on fast forward. But my eyes stayed locked on the trees, watching the leaves and long limbs flow in the very soft breeze. 

I began to feel my arms flow like the tree’s, slowly floating up and down to the whim of the humid breeze.

“Your sister is a good lay.”

Melchior’s voice came out cracked after what might have been two minutes, or thirty. I looked over to see my companion staring out at the sky, his eyes tracing the stars and the huge moon overhead. 

“What?” I spat out, studying the way his curls flew around his head, light. Like faeries were tugging on the curls and letting them go so softly. “You had sex with Thea?”

Melchior nodded and finally looked over to me, with the biggest shit eating grin. “Yeah. When Wendla and I were fighting a few months before we left. She came over and waxed poetic about how brave I was for sticking it to the man. Then next thing I knew, I was-”

“I don’t want to know,” Biting back, I took the blunt and turned away so I didn’t have to see the look on his face when he talked about stuffing my poor little sister. She was barely seventeen. And the fact that she gave it up to such a knob like Melchior made me sick. I had hoped she’d at least have better taste.

Melchior still didn’t get the hint. When he took the cigarette from my fingers, he continued on in his slow, mocking voice. “Don’t worry, Hanschen. She wasn’t that great.”

“I really don’t want to hear it.”

“Nah it’s fine,” He said, deftly. “She’s like, cute and all. But she just didn’t put in much effort. You think for such a hard-ass feminist she’d work at least a bit.”

“Melchior, that’s my sister, you sick fuck.”

He blew out a large plume of pungent smoke, blown right back into my face by that ever present breeze. “But she just sat there. You know the type of girls who when you get them into bed they just-”   
“No, I don’t know that type of girl. I don’t know any type of girl, Melchior.”

He turned back to me with wide eyes. His smile, though faint, was still there though, pressing through tanned skin. “What do you mean? You’ve never gotten laid?”

“I’ve gotten laid, Melchior,” I replied, probably sounding more defensive than I should have. Part of my brain had told me that I shouldn’t be telling Dumbass Melchior this about me. But hell, I had already not listened to my brain when I agreed to ‘Take a Walk’ with him.

I practically turned it off when I agreed to this stupid war.

“Just not by a girl.” I finished after a pause, taking my time to look around the perimeter. No one was in my sight, just those poor guys along the fence, all of which out of earshot. 

Melchior, for the first time in what felt like eternity, was quiet. That sure as hell seemed to shut him up. Maybe I should keep telling him secrets to get him to stop fucking talking. I’ll tell him about the time I accidentally hit the neighbor’s cat on my bike. Or the time I cheated on my calculus final. Or the time I almost ran away with Max but then we ran out of gas ten minutes out of town and had to call  his mom to pick us up. 

But this silence, glorious and rich, was broken by Melchior’s voice, which sounded more like nails on a chalkboard than a soft, questioning tone. “So you fucked a dog or something?”

“NO, JACKASS!” I yelled back. If I had full control of my limbs, I would have wrapped my hands around his throat and choked that idiot out. But my arms felt like they were full of lead at this point. “You’re so goddamn smart, Melchior. You figure out what I mean.” 

When I looked at Melchior, his eyes were wide, confused, and locked on me. For a minute of so, maybe twenty, he looked at me with a confused glare. Then suddenly, his face lifted. Like everything had just clicked into place. I thought that I could kinda see the gears working in his head like he was one of those big guns we had warehouses full of. Like I had just reloaded him and waited a few moments to hear the bullet go into its place.

“Oh.” Was all that he could manage to say. Nothing else. Just ‘Oh’. Maybe I had broken him. He had finally stopped working, so I could take the chance to breathe.

Oh. I hadn’t been breathing that whole time.

My deep breaths came over me slow, filling me up and emptying me until I felt like the windsock we had on the pole right next to our American flag. 

“What are you two doing?”

I had never understood what ‘Fight or Flight’ meant. When they talked about it in school, I was never able to understand what my teachers meant. Then I realized what they meant when I turned on my heel to see where the voice was coming from and Melchior turned to bolt the other way.

As Melchior sprinted as far away as possible, my eyes wandered over to see Ernst standing a couple yards away. Even though the light from the moon was dim, I could still make out his disappointed expression. And he could probably make out mine.

“Oh hey, Ernst,” My voice came out cracking way more than I would have liked it to. He didn’t respond at first, just stomped over to me. His eyes were locked on me, like a hawk going in for the kill. 

When he got to me, I could practically see the anger coming off of him like steam off of the sidewalk. “What the fuck, Hanschen! Do you know how much trouble you could get into?”

“Who’s gonna get me into trouble?” I asked almost immediately. I found myself looking over his face, studying it like it was one of those maps in geography class my sophomore year. His eyes sat at the bottom of two canyons. His dimples were like valleys. His nose was like a small mountain. His cheeks were like fields. 

Ernst looked at me with a confused look, but pushed that aside quickly. “I could get you into trouble, Hanschen. If I wanted to, I could take my happy ass to Baker and tell him what you’re doing.”

“You’re not a snitch, Ernst,” I said as if I had known him for years. I knew him well though. Well enough to see his face soften when he saw me. He was always so soft around me. Every morning after breakfast, I would visit him in the tent. By the time I was up, he would have been working for hours and be deep into his pissed off mom mood. Then, I was allowed the pleasure of having him turn to me and seeing his eyes light up and his brow unfurrow. Hearing his voice go from stern and matronly to the gentle coo of an old friend.

And I got to see him do it again, right before my eyes. In the cold moonlight, his face became gentle at my statement. “Do you know how bad that is for you?” He sighed and bent over to pick up the the butt of the blunt laying on the dirt. “Do you think inhaling chemicals is good for your lungs, Hanschen.”

“What are you, Ernst? My mother?” I asked with raised brows. 

Ernst shook his head. “It’s literally my job to keep you healthy.” As he spoke he flicked the butt to the ground again and this time, drove it into the dirt with the toe of his boot. Destroying all the evidence with a twist of his ankle. He kept grinding it into the dust, my eyes locked on it. The slow and constant twist and back and twist and back. I let my eyes follow as he spoke up again. “You’re so far gone, Hanschen. Go to bed.”

Before I could say anything, his arms was hooked around my shoulder and the tall man took the first few guiding steps in the direction of my tent. It took me a few moments to catch on and move my feet so he wasn’t dragging around a ragdoll. But I still clung to him like I was a toddler holding onto my father’s leg.

As we walked/ wandered towards the tent, I heard Ernst begin to hum from beside me. With one arm laced around my shoulders, I was close enough to hear the tune coming from his mouth. It was pretty. He had a sort of flowy rhythm as he sang a song I couldn’t recognize. Then finally, he opened his mouth a bit to mumble the words.

“Young people speaking their minds,” He muttered along to the little tune in his head. “Getting so much resistance from behind.”

With a nod, I looked up at him. His face was serene and soft, staring straight at the tent ahead. “What are you singing, Ernst?” I asked, not any louder than the volume he had been singing at.

He cut himself off, mid-hum, to look down at me and reply. “Buffalo Springfield. You haven’t heard of them?”

When I shook my head, Ernst continued. As he spoke I watched the slightest smile rise to his face. “At the base I was on before this one, there was a group of guys from Chicago. None of them really liked the war. And they loves that Goddamn song. One of them used to walk around with this guitar, always strumming that chorus. He said it was the song of our generation.” His smile suddenly widened a he recalled his life closer to the coast. “Sargeant Cooling HATED them. Did everything he could to get them to shut up. But they never did.”

I chucked that kind of slow, drawn out chuckle that you do when you’re falling asleep or falling in love. Then, Ernst began to sing again, a bit louder so that I could hear him just a bit better. “It's time we stop, hey, what's that sound. Everybody look what's going down….” He repeated that phrase a few times as we got closer to the dark tent. I didn’t want to go in, but Ernst stopped at the doorway, signalling for me to head inside. “Get some sleep, Hanschen. I don’t want you to be a zombie at six AM.”

I then realized that I had been smiling that entire time. And that happy, simple smile only fell when he patted my back in a solid goodbye. “Alright, Kid.”

And with that he was gone, leaving me to wander aimlessly into the tent, bumping and stumbling through the dark until I found my cot. It was just how I left it, made with my cassette laying on top. How long had I been gone?

Long enough for Melchior to come back far before me and fall asleep in his own cot. But for the first time ever, he had fallen asleep on his side. He usually sleeps on his back, snoring like a maniac. But tonight, he was silent.

“Melchior?” I whispered to the back turned to me. “Melchior? Are you awake?”

Silence. He didn’t even acknowledge me. He just stayed turned away from me.

So I let the silence sit there between us. And it stayed there all night long.


	8. And who was wrong? And who was right? It didn't matter in the thick of the fight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: Sexual content and dubious consent

Not having Melchior around felt like loneliness beyond loneliness. I was so used to having someone around to annoy me that when he wasn't, I didn't know what to do. 

He was still around. But he was separate. He didn't hang around our cots anymore. He didn't wait up for me at meals anymore. He just sulked about, walking in the opposite direction of me at all time and avoiding eye contact any time we had to be near each other.

Most of the time, he'd have Moritz following him like a lost kid. I never pegged then as close buds, but apparently they were. Maybe Melchior needed someone to listen to him ramble and Moritz just needed someone to tell him what to do. In that case, they were a.match made in heaven.

After two weeks, I couldn't take it anymore. No Melchior, No Moritz. The only thing keeping me from becoming a hermit was my jogs around the perimeter and Ernst Robel.

I knew shouldn't have, but I kept finding myself wandering to the Medic ’s tent when I had free time. I knew Ernst didn't want me hanging around, he always reminded me of the rules that I shouldn't be in there unless I was ill. But he never sent me away.

And so I found myself wandering towards the tent after an especially lonely supper, spent staring off into the sky and exchanging uncomfortable glances with Moritz from where he and Melchior sat a few yards away.

Melchior wouldn't dare even look in my direction.

I needed Ernst. I needed someone, anyone to make me feel like I wasn't some lunatic, ostracized from the town. And Ernst was the only person I could think of that could do that.

When I pulled back the canvas of the entry way, I was first met with the rows and rows of empty cots. Not a single person was ill. That was a miracle only Ernst Robel could pull of.

The next thing I saw was a tall man with light brown hair. For a moment, I thought it was Ernst and my heart soared. But barely a second later I noticed he wasn't. He was too broad, wide thick arms and strong shoulders. His hair was too dark, not highlighted by the sun like Ernst’s. 

“Oh, Hanschen,” Bobby drawled when he saw me standing blankly in the entrance. “Can I help you with something?”

I shook my head and looked away from his dangerous eyes. “Nothing, Maler. Do you know where Ernst is?”

“You know, Hanschen. It's not cute. You following him around. It actually makes you rather obvious.”

I could already feel my bitterness bubbling out of me like lava. “What do you mean ‘obvious’?” I asked, with venom in my tongue.

“It makes it obvious that you're a queer, Hanschen. You act like you haven't heard us talking about it.” Bobby acted like it was the most casual thing in the world. Like I wore it on my shirt right next to our insignia. 

“No, I haven't heard you talking about it. And I'd appreciate if you didn't.” Then I suddenly remembered to hope on the defensive. But Bobby's smirk told me that it was already too late. “I'm not a queer, Maler.”

I wasn't a queer. I really wasn't. I was as straight as a line, besides the odd guy here or there. But that's different. They were always different.

And I was different. I wasn't flouncing around the town putting cocks in my ass and putting on women's clothing. That's what queers do. And I wasn't a damn queer.

“It's nothing to be ashamed of, Hanschen,” He was quick to lie. He slowly moved from where he was changing sheets towards me and the doorway. When I stepped aside, he looked around outside before quickly zipping up the tent. 

The way he moved was fluid, yet firm and strong. Like a great wave or a tsunami. There were no jagged edges to him but he still loomed threateningly over me. 

Then, I felt it all begin to unravel. As he looked at me with that goddamn smile I felt like my insides were being flip flopped like a damn pancake. He had me trapped now. 

So, I began pleading. All my dignity and morals fell to the ground around me. 

“Please,” I begged, my eyes closed so I didn't have to see his glaring eyes or his harsh and ruinous grin. “Please, Maler. I'm not a queer but please don't tell anyone. I can't be sent away. Not with-"

“Not without Ernst?”

When I opened his eyes,  I saw he had become more amused than anything else. He cleared his throat and took a step forward, causing me to take two more steps back, towards the cots. I didn't want this sick fuck near me. But he still continued, mocking sympathy in his voice. “It's alright,Hanschen. I understand, I really do.” Another step forward, I take another step back. “But let's strike a deal. I won't tell if you don't.”

At first I was confused, looking at him with a furrowed brow as I nervously backed even farther until I had hit a cot with the back of my thighs. Then, I suddenly noticed the smug grin on his face and it all clicked together. “Wait...Are you…” Was all I could say.

Bobby’s long and thick legs took two or three strides, closing the gap between us more until it was barely a foot or two separating us. “I wouldn’t put it into any strong terms like that…” He drawled out, his voice simply smothered in spine-tingling sweetness. “But I’d like to say we aren’t that different.”

“Don’t say that,” I demanded, although I was in no place to demand anything in this position. “We are nothing alike, Maler.”

But my demands fell upon deaf ears as Bobby smiled at me like I had just told him the most wonderful secret. “Please, call me Bobby,” He said, his voice twisting up into a giddy squeak on the last syllable. “And I think you and I are more alike than you would like to admit. Men are made of their secrets. So we are the same person in different skins.”

I didn’t know what to say. So I didn’t say anything. I could just stare up at him as he loomed above me, slowly closing in on me like a cat over a wounded mouse.

And then, we were kissing. 

I’m not sure how it happened. I wish I could remember who had been the one to initiate it. If I knew, I would have ten pounds of guilt lifted off my shoulder. But I can’t. I just knew that one moment we weren’t kissing, and then we suddenly were.

Bobby’s hands were gentle, cradling the side of my face and guiding my lips up to his. But behind his lips I felt waves and waves of animosity. It made me want to pull away, but I never did. I just kissed him back with equal rage and passion. 

It felt all wrong, but I stopped caring all that much. I felt myself slowly become more apathetic as he pulled me closer. Soon, I was against him. And I knew I was feeling his muscles and his arms wrapping around me and his erection rubbing against my hip. But I’d be lying if I said that I was feeling anything for the boy this body belonged to. 

I think my feeling returned around the time Bobby had pushed me down onto the cot he had just laid out the new sheets for. And that feeling was just  ‘might as well’.

It had felt like years since someone touched me like Bobby did. I would have preferred it of he hadn’t been touching me so roughly, yanking down my pants and pushing me onto my back. But it might as well happen. I wasn’t able to think straight, or think of anything at all. So he just keeps going, not looking at me for any approval as he went to work kissing up and down my neck with violent, sloppy kisses. 

The next thing I felt was pleasure. Not the real kind. The sort of canned kind. It felt like anything he gave me must’ve been passed through filters until it got to me. Even though he was up against me, hell, even in me, it was like he was behind a brick wall.

The one thing that bugged me, was that I was constantly reminded that it was him. He couldn’t just let me lay there in peace, he had to make noise.

His noises her gruff, low grunts and heavy sighs. It was nothing like Max.

Max. I kept on imagining Max above me. Max made noise, sure, but not like Bobby’s. Max’s sounds were softer, gentler. His touches were always tender, ghosting his fingers across my stomach and through my hair. Not like Bobby, who was currently grabbing at my shoulders to pull me against him.

Then, my mind began to roll through anyone else. I began to replace Bobby with more than just Max. Max’s flaming red hair was replaced by the curly brown hair of the cute boy who sat next to me in math. Then to the dirty blond hair of the kid working at the mechanics my dad took our car to, who made my dreams come true in the back room once. Then to Ernst. 

Fuck. Ernst.

I didn't want to picture him. He had barely even touched me but his image filled my imagination, blurring out Bobby entirely.

I could feel his hands all over, touching every single inch of my body. Those long fingers traced over my muscles and knit in my hair. I pictured the hands touching every scar, freckle, wrinkle, and trace over the moles on my chest like they were constellations. I imagined his fingers slowly circling around the now pulsating scar on my calf.

His hands would be so soft and so loving. I needed them to wrap me up and cradle me until I wake up from his bad dream that Bobby snapped me back into when his rough hand grabbed me by the throat. I had somehow almost forgotten he was there. 

I don't remember finishing. One moment we were in the throws of this awkward encounter and the next thing I knew, it was over. Just as fast as it began, it was over. 

When I looked over to Bobby, I saw him tugging on his uniform pants, his eyes locked on me. It's like he was watching a snake in a zoo, waiting for it to move or strike. But like those animals in the New York Zoo, I stayed laying out on the cot. It was so hard, it felt like those rocks the animals sunned themselves on. 

He must’ve gotten bored of my stillness, because he turned away to straighten his shirt like nothing had happened.

I didn't feel like me. I felt just like some sort of wind up toy. Like had been great fun for a while, but now I lay on my side collecting dust under the bed.

“Here, Hanschen,” He broke the silence and tossed me my pair of pants, the ones he had tossed to the floor. “Clean yourself up.”

All previous sweetness was gone. His voice had finally become as rough as his touch. And it was just what I expected. 

Sitting up to take the pants was the first time I had moved since Bobby had let go of me. I wasn't sure if the pain and soreness shooting through me was mental or physical, but I definitely felt it crash over me like a wave. 

But I still managed to pull on the pants. As I did, I watched Bobby stand and stretch like he was waking up from a long nap. He didn't look back at me until he had walked to the doorway. Then he turned back at me, taking in my disheveled form and sunken eyes. 

“You might wanna get to bed soon, Hansi,” He said with a sickening smile. “It's almost lights out.”

I started  to call after him, but he was gone by the time I managed to get the sentence from my throat. “My sister is the only one who can call me that!”

But he was gone. Leaving me alone to sit on this disgusting cot and feel disgust for myself seep into my core. I was disgusting. I had let this happen and that was disgusting.

I am disgusting. 

I didn't want to have to drag myself from the tent. Right now, all this disgust and bitterness remained in the confines of this canvas tent. I knew that when I left it, that disgust would follow me out. Then it wouldn't let me go. It would stay perched on my shoulder with Bobby’s sick grin. 

This tent knew my secret and if I opened it, I was afraid they would sneak out and slip around the rest of the base, whispering in the ears of all the men it could find.

Private Rilow let Maler have his way with him in the Medic's Tent. 

Private Rilow is disgusting.

The thought of the sleeping tent felt cold. That's where Bobby was right now, probably sleeping soundly with his empty balls and his evil smile.

That's where Melchior was, apathetic Melchior. With his back turned to me and ignoring how desperately I needed him.

So I found myself slowly drifting away in that cot. I let my eyes close and my mind run away into a night full of bad dreams. 


	9. And it was dark so dark at night

Thomas Rupert seemed to be alright. He was funny and everyone seemed to like him. At lunch,  he would wander around, talking to everybody and anybody about everything and anything. And he always had a big, stupid smile on his face like he liked everything he saw. 

That was Tom. Happy go lucky, quirky Tom that you couldn't hate even if you tried. That was also the Tom that Max found standing on the George Washington bridge one night when he was driving home from a party in Fort Lee. Tom had gone to the party as well, but left earlier, saying that his mom needed him home.

Max recognized him by the head of light blond curls, like those of a little kid running around on the playground. He was standing on the edge, looking over the Hudson with big eyes. At first, he thought Tom had just pulled over to sight-see. Then, he noticed that Tom what stepped beyond the railing and was holding onto one of the cables securing the bridge. 

Max parked the car, thanking God that it was two am and the city that never sleeped seemed at least a bit drowsy. “Hey, Tom!” He called to the boy, a senior and one year older than us. “Tom, what are you up to.”

According to Max, Tom just rocked side to side ever so slightly. He knew Tom was drunk when he left the party, but he seemed wasted at this point. He didn’t respond to Max at all. Not even when he asked Tom where his car was or when he got here and what he’s been drinking. Tom only replied when Max, who was leaning against the railing, asked him was he was doing on the edge. 

“I dunno…” Was all Tom said before leaning over the edge and looking down at the water below. “I don’t think I wanna do anything.”

But when Max offered to help him back over the railing and give him a ride home, Tom tipped over and went plummeting off the edge and down into the Hudson.

I didn’t believe Max when he showed up at my front step at three AM, telling me this. But he seemed so scared and was in such a panic, that I had to believe him.

I really believed him when they found Tom’s body the next day after Max left an anonymous tip. 

I tried to forget all about what Max told me. I hated thinking about Tom, standing there on the edge. And for a while, I was able to push the picture of Tom on the bridge down and not think about it. 

But now, I was starting to feel just like Tom. Like the bloated, broken body they pulled from the river.  During my night perimeter, I would stare out at the sky, open and dark, filled with a handful of twinkling stars. I felt just like Tom, who was probably staring up at a sky just like this when he took the dive. 

I had gotten to the point where night perimeter had just become me staring beyond the fence. I know that a part of the job was making sure no dumbasses were messing around like high schoolers. But I’d be damned if I cared enough to look over my shoulder to see what was going on when I heard men running around and chuckling behind my back.

I just kept staring out at the fence and the thick trees beyond it. I felt like Tom when he stared over the bay, not turning to look at Max even as he begged him to.

“Hey, Hanschen,” Ernst’s voice startled me. And unlike Tom, I finally turned around to see his smiling face bounding towards me through the dark.As he got closer, I noticed the deep indents of dimples on his cheeks, catching the shadows and making them look like little valleys in his face. “How are you?”

His question warmed my heart. Ernst had seemed to have taken an interest in my well being after he had found me asleep on one of the Medic’s cots after the Maler Incident. He walked me back to my own cot and never questioned why I was sleeping in the Medic’s Tent.  He was grinning like a fool, even if he was asking because he was afraid I was going insane. “I’m fine, Ernst. What are you up to?”

I gestured aimlessly as the ghost of a landscape around us. “Just what it looks like I'm up to.”

As Ernst sat down on the ground beside me, not afraid to get red dirt all over his already dirty uniform. “Have you been sleeping alright, Hanschen?”

Okay, maybe this whole looking after me thing got a bit annoying. If it were anyone else, I would feel like some dumb kid being watched after by a baby sitter. But it was Ernst, his kind smile  making up for anything that might get on my nerves. “Yeah. I’ve been sleeping just fine, Ernst.”

He looked up at me with a very soft glare that reminded me of my mother. “I’m only asking because I worry about you, Hansi.”

At first the word shocked me. For some reason, my mind flashed to our first apartment, when i was just starting grade school and Thea was no older than three of four. She bumbled around the small apartment on Long Island, chasing our dog while I learned to read.  She could say some words, like ‘Mom’ and ‘Dad’ and ‘Ball’ and ‘Pancake’. But for some reason, she couldn’t pronounce ‘Hanschen’. She ‘sch’sound was too much for her mouth, with the baby teeth struggling to come in. So, she decided on calling me ‘Hansi’. She would then waddle around the small apartment, clapping and singing happily “Hansi, Hansi, Hansi, Hansi!”.

Even when her baby teeth came and went and she aged into an angsty and opinionated  teenager, she kept calling me Hansi. Even when she got mad at me and slammed the door in my face and called me a filthy capitalist pig, she would call me Hansi as she groaned about me.

Goddamn it I was so close to crying because of ‘Hansi’.

“Are you alright?” Ernst asked me suddenly, noticing that my eyes had grown wide and I probably looked like I was going to burst into tears. 

I nodded and reached down to pat his small, narrow shoulder. “I’m fine, Ernst. You don’t need to worry so much about me, by the way. I can handle myself.”

“I know that, you’re pretty damn strong,” He stated without hesitation. “But if I learned anything while working for the forces, it’s that strong people need help.”

I was almost shocked at first, hearing his just say something like that so calmly. For a moment or so, I felt like I needed to reach out to him. Like I should divulge all my secrets. All the mistakes I made back home, how much I missed Melchior and Moritz, what had happened in the tent. His eyes were so kind I felt like I could just collapse right there in his arms and he wouldn’t do anything besides hold me and tell my I had done nothing wrong.

Some part of me fantasized that he would hold his arms out to me and pull me close, somehow reading all the thoughts that had just ran through my mind. Then he would sit there until the sun came up, just in he pleasant silence that often brewed between us.

But instead, I let out all these fantasies in a strangled cough that probably smelled like the cigarettes Adams had smuggled in and traded me my breakfast for. I was starting to understand why the boys back home said it was a habit that, when you started, you couldn’t break it. “What should you be doing right now?” I sputtered, attempting to derail this conversation as fast as possible.

Ernst didn’t notice this sudden shock in my tone and shrugged casually. “I should be tending to the men in the Medic’s tent. But there are none. So I’m either waiting for sunrise of waiting for some idiot to break his arm running around in the dark.” 

“Don’t they have guy on night duty for you?” I asked, recalling seeing Bobby in there at night, giving me looks from the corner of his eye and a raised brow instead of a greeting. I didn’t dare hint that I knew who was supposed to have night duty. Some odd part of me feared that if I said his name, he’d suddenly appear. 

“Yeah, but I keep thinking that he’s not doing it right,” He explained, his voice calm and kind like he was explaining it to a patient. “So then I lay awake for a few hours, nervous that he’s somehow just messing up sitting in an empty tent or making sure no one dies in their sleep. Until finally, I get so nervous, that I just get up. “

“Then shouldn’t you be there making sure no one dies in their sleep adequately?” I was quick to retort, a smile on my face.

He smiled back, the warm sunshine-y smile that made my chilled nose and tips of my fingers feel not so cold. “There’s no one to watch after. Tent’s empty.”

I don’t know why, but I started laughing. It just all seemed so silly. A soldier sitting at his post with a nurse who had no patients. Neither of us were who we were supposed to be. To my elation, he began laughing too. His laugh was much higher and squeakier than mine, cutting through any tenseness I had. Without even thinking, I spoke. “Well, if there’s no one there normally but you’re still getting up, then why don’t you join me on perimeter?”

I was scared at first. I had never just let myself say things like that before. My entire life, I had been to keep it all in. And I knew I was trying to keep it in. Max always gave me shit for never saying what I wanted.  A couple girls who made the mistake of thinking I had a crush on them confronted me, telling me they could never tell how I felt. Most of the time it was better to keep those kinds of things in.

Hell, I guess I sort of liked to keep people guessing.

But with Ernst I felt the urge to wear my heart on my sleeve. And when he smiled back at me, I just wanted to do it more and more. 

“Sure, Hansi,” He replied, contently looking me up and down, probably taking in how surprised I was at myself. “I think I’d like that.”

I looked back to the stars with a new smile on my face. Sure, they were the same stars Tom Rupert looked at. They were the same stars that I was looking at just ten minutes ago, wishing I was anywhere else. But somehow, they had changed. They seemed so much brighter and so much closer to earth. 

And I didn’t want to be anywhere else but a stone’s throw from enemy lines and right next to Ernst Robel.


	10. And we held on to each other like brother to brother

I don’t remember when I stopped listening to Ernst’s story, but there was a point where I definitely wasn’t processing a single word he said. I just watched him as he spoke. He was so enthralled in a story he had probably told a hundred times. I seemed to be about his mom? Or maybe about one of the many brothers he mentioned from time to time. I could have watched his eyes light up and the smile on his face for hours at a time and not get bored.

The only thing to shake me from this trance-like start of watching Ernst wax-poetic about nothing at all was a sudden, rough voice calling, “Hanschen?” From behind me.

Through the dark, I saw a tall figure calling out to me in his familiar voice. Ernst now went silent beside me, his eyes locking on the man approaching. After a few steps, I could see it was none other than Melchior Gabor approaching the fence. He walked slowly, not with the confident air he usually kept about them. He seemed to have shrank in his own skin, unsure of what to do. With this nervousness, I had almost forgotten that he had been blatantly ignoring me for weeks now. I just replied in a wavering voice, “Yeah?”

He came closer now, still keeping a few feet between me and him. Now that he was close, he kept his eyes downcast, staring at my boots if I was correct. After a pause filled with Melchior shifting his weight uncomfortably, he cleared his throat and said in a voice much smaller than usual. “You wanna come grab a smoke with me?”

For a few moments, I thought I was dreaming. I must’ve been dreaming if Melchior was speaking to me. But he wasn’t speaking to me with the weightless casualty he normally carried himself with. That’s how I knew it wasn’t a dream. 

When I looked over to Ernst, he was staring at me with raised brows. His gaze told me to be suspicious of Melchior’s offer, but to feel free to go.

It was odd how I had learned to pick up on the subtleties of Ernst so fast. But he seemed to pick up on mine too, nodding when I tilted my head, asking if I should go or not.

After the long pause, I stood, letting out my own sigh of relief similar to the one Melchior released. After a few steps towards the nervous man, I looked over my shoulder to Ernst, still sat with his back against the fence. “I’ll catch you later, Ernst.”

All he replied with was a content shrug, adding as Melchior and I turned to walk away. “I won’t catch you if your lungs are rotting.”

We both chose to ignore him, taking a few steps away before one of us spoke up. It was me who broke the silence that sat between us like a brick wall. “How have you been, Melchior?”

“Not too good.  I feel like I’ve done nothing but work all month,” He replied after a long sigh. “My feet ache and my body hurts all over.”   


“You didn’t expect that when you joined the army, huh?” I poked a bit of fun, hoping that might set some ease between us. Luckily,  from the corner of my eye, I saw Melchior crack a smile.

He shook his head, the little curls that were slowly coming from his grown out buzz-cut bopping around. “I’m an inch away from packing my bags and running away.”

“What? To join the enemy?” 

Melchior let out a soft chuckle, looking up at me for what must have been the first time in a month. It was just a quick glance at my face, almost immediately looking back at his feet. “How’s the leg feeling?”

“My leg hasn’t hurt in a while,”I held back my laughter. I didn’t want to laugh at someone who was obviously trying to care. 

He breathed out a strained breath, like he had been trying to hold it in for so long. “That’s good. That’s real good.” And almost a moment later, “You want a smoke?”

I was fast to take the hand rolled cigarette from his grasp. He seemed to have an unlimited amount in the pack of Camels he kept in his front pocket.  

We smoked like it was a necessity to survive. Sitting on the flimsy tables we ate meals at, we talked about anything. First, it was nervous, like toddlers learning to walk. We depended on one another to carry the conversation, stumbling about blindly on how we’ve been doing and how our families were. But as time went on and joints shrunk between our fingers, the conversation escalated. We walked about missing our parents, about hoping the war would end.

“I’m so sorry,” He said after what felt like years talking about anything but what had happened between us. His eyes were set on the patch of dead grass at our feet, the one we had picked at and tripped over every day. “God, I’m so sorry, Hanschen.”

Even though I knew exactly what I wanted him to mean, I still needed some sort of clarity. “What do you mean?”

“I’m sorry for leaving you like that. I didn’t hear you out. I should have actually listened to you instead of jumping to conclusions.”

I was speechless. Melchior had never been one to show remorse. In school, he was known for showing up late to class and turning down girls with a swift ‘I don’t think so’. But now, he was eight-thousand miles from home. It took in this rare moment, soaking in exactly how the moon hit his face and how shakey my breath was as he continued, “I mean...I understand… You’re just...I think I just jumped to conclusions about what you said.”

“You’re not jumping to conclusions,” I assured in the softest voice I could muster. He was obviously not understanding. It felt like I was speaking to an ostrich with his head stuck in the ground and I was trying to explain to him what color the sky was. “What you thought was right, Melchior.”

I was high enough to not think about the repercussions. Or even to really think about what it meant. I just knew what my brain told me. And in my brain there was a neon sign spelling out ‘ERNST’.

He shook his head almost furiously.  “Hanschen. I mean...there aren’t a lot of people who are-”   
  
“Yes, there are.”

“Sure but, they’re not out here fight-”

“Yes, they are.”

The silence sent the strangest feelings through my mind. I wanted to run and hide like I did back at home. Just like after I had kissed a boy and would walk up to my room with tears in my heart. Or when I would go to the bathroom and splash water in my face after catching myself staring at a boy in biology. I wanted to hide away under my blankets and cry out all the tears that had been building up.

“Who? What quee-...” He thought hard on what to say. “People like that don’t join the army.”

“Neither do people like you.”

And suddenly, like a waterfall flowing from my mouth, the words came out tumbling over one another so it just sounded like: “BobbyMaler’saqueertoo.”

Melchior finally started at me. Really stared at me. He looked at me with eyes that said ‘I wish you hadn’t said that.’

But I did. No turning back. 

“How do you know?”

I sighed, letting my shoulders slump down into the shameful stance I had been trying to avoid. “We...He and I….We…” I swallowed hard, the words threatening to choke me. “We had….”

“Don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.”

We continue smoking, not speaking to one another until they had burnt so low that our fingers were singed. He didn’t say a word until he stood up, sticking his hand out. “I’ll see you, okay, Hanschen. Take care of yourself.”

I didn’t ask whether or not he was mad, I didn’t have the guts to. I just nodded, praying that the little smile on his face was that of friendship. “I’ll see ya, Melchior.”

I walked back that night just to tell Ernst I was heading to bed early. He didn’t ask me why, just looked at me with knowing eyes and let me on my way.

Hopefully no one would notice that my position was empty.


	11. We dug in deep and shot on sight and prayed to Jesus Christ with all our might

It might have been a week or so since the heat left. There was no longer the feeling of sun beating down on us, just humidity if we were lucky. If we weren’t, there was rain.  

It was still humid and sticky, but now everything was wet. Even inside the tent, it was wet. Our cots were wet, our foot was wet, our boots seemed to have a constant puddle waiting to soak our already damp socks.

Ernst’s hair curled when it got wet. More than just the slight wave that made his slowly growing hair look tousled at all times. Curls like that of the little kids in the old movies, the kids who would beg for candy and say ‘Mista’. 

He would walk around with these curls glued to his forehead, talking to me of the dumbasses who hurt themselves that morning or of the birds he saw on his walk. Never anything too heavy. It felt like he thought I was fragile, something to laugh with and talk to every night, but never digging to deep. Maybe he feared I would run off if he did. Because I feared the same thing of him. 

Everything was surface level, like the rain that beat against our skin, keeping to where, if we needed to, we could go change clothes and shake off that topic.

The world was made up of puddles from conversations I had shaken off when I was walking back from dinner. Puddles like lakes that I had no option other than to walk through. I had just gotten over what felt like Lake Michigan when I felt a hard hand on my shoulder.

It could have been a shove, but probably no more than an accident. I thought that until I felt another one, right in between my shoulder blades. This one was much harder, almost knocking me off my balance.

I recalled when I was much younger and my cousins would come all the way from Connecticut for Thanksgiving. We’d all go outside and play in the snow after dinner, building forts and men of snow. They were older than Thea and I, so they were quick to turn whatever fun we were having into a battle of the siblings. 

“Stürmen!” One would cry out before hurling the snowball at my face. Their father, my mother’s brother, insisted on teaching them their grandparents language and culture while my parents contemplated changing our names when the war broke out. 

But Bobby Maler was not screaming when he hit me. When I looked at him over my shoulder, his face was contorted into rage.

And maybe, fear.

“Maler!” I said, breaking a smile to hopefully make him realize that this was all some rough, shoving misunderstanding.  “Maler, what’s do you need?”

Immediately, a string of expletives exploded from his mouth, twisted in a grimace. “ You fucking cunt! You motherfucker! You bastard!”

As he shouted, Bobby’s fists came down fast and hard. He landed punches on my chest, my shoulders, and my chin before I was able to cover my face with my arms.

He pounded my forearms as he continued. “Fuck you, Rilow. Fuck you! You ruined me, you faggot!” 

“What?!” I shouted over his attack. “Maler, calm down! What the hell?”

He stopped punching, apparently remembering all the training we had in basic and lunging at me. He had me in the puddle now, water sloshing around my ears and soaking into  my uniform. On top of me, he attempted to land punches to my face. But most barely grazed my cheeks and ears, probably on account of the angry tears in his eyes making it hard to see.

“Maler! Get the fuck off of me!” I finally attempted to shove him off. But it was no use. Bobby was much stronger than me.

I hadn’t noticed that when he was on top of me before.

“Faggot!” He shrieked out. “Faggot! Faggot!” He repeated it like that was all he could think of. “I HATE YOU!”

The last few words came out in a growl, stifled only by the sob he was trying to suppress.

His fist finally hit it’s target, hitting me in the right eye with so much power I could feel it swell and throb immediately. 

I didn’t notice there was a group of men around me until some ran forward to pull Bobby off of me. With the sudden space between us, I could now see the tight circle of men. Of course with only one eye. The vision of the other was already blurring. They shouted, at both Bobby and me. Some chanted for me to fight back, other’s cheered on Bobby, and some just shouted in general.

Of these men, I noticed the translucent skin of Moritz. He stared with fearful eyes, but didn’t move. When he noticed me looking at him, he finally took a step forward and reached out, offering a hand to help me out of the mud.

“I’m so damn sorry, Hanschen,” Was all he could say before the crowd split like the red sea. Baker was coming straight at us, eyes red with rage.

“What the hell is going on!” He shouted over the pounding of the rain and the pounding in my ears. 

I looked over to see the men who had been restraining Bobby had let go, leaving him to shrink into himself. He looked so shaky, like I could push him over with a finger. They all looked between the perpetrator and the Sergeant with urgent eyes. 

When neither of us spoke, Baker continued. His voice broke the sudden silence that had come over the crowd. “If I don’t find out what the hell you two were doing, you’re both on a boat back tonight.”

“Sir, I was walking and I-”

“Wait a minute, Private,” His eyes moved over to see Bobby, who was muddy but not half af muddy as I was. He was staring at his shoes with all the confidence he once had draining out. “Maler. Who do you think you are? Causing trouble on your last damn day?”

No response. I had never seen Bobby so full of shame. “Men, I am not here to break up your schoolyard fights. I don’t care, what the hell happened. I can tell what happened from how you poor fuckers are standing there with those dumb fucking faces.”

The men around Bobby disbursed at the Sergeant approached with rage in each step.  “Maler, get your shit. You’re going to be spending the night on the boat home.” 

Bobby jolted forward without hesitation, rushing past me and cutting through the crowd towards the sleeping quarters. Even in the rain, I could see the tears that he had been holding back now rushing down his face in hot, ugly tears.

This definitely wasn’t the Bobby I knew.

“Private,” He looked at me. “I suggest you get your sorry ass to the infirmary. Break time’s over, men.”

The group dissipated, knowing that if they didn’t, there would be consequences much worse than a glare from the Sergeant. Moritz was the only one who didn’t move. He stayed by my side, offering in a glace, a companion to the medic’s.

Russo was the medic on duty at the moment, taking care of a couple men with the flu. He was quick to rush towards me, but not as fast as Ernst would have been.  I didn’t know the severity of the wounds until he told me. A bloody nose that might be broken a black eye and so severely covered in mud that I needed to be washed off before I could even sit in a cot.

“Well at least your conscious,” Russo said once they got my laying down with ice pressed to my face. “And now that you’re all cleaned up, it seems like your bleeding was only external.”

“Good news,” I grunted. My busted lip made it hard to talk without the fear of the bleeding starting back up. 

From beside me,  Moritz cleared his throat, as if he were going to speak. But he said nothing, just stared down at his hands in his lap. “What the hell was that about,” Russo asked what the whole base was probably thinking. Fights broke out often enough, but most of the time just shoving and shouting. Very rarely was someone getting the shit beaten out of them like I was. “What did you do, Rilow?”

“I wish I knew,” I replied. “I was just walking back to change my shirt so I could go on a jog and Maler just fucking attacked.”

Russo rolled his eyes. He was a bigger guy, but all that extra weight gave him a ‘Gentle Giant’ feel when he cared for you. “I mean, why would you spend your last day beating up on someone?”

“Last day?”

Both Russo and Moritz looked at me with sad eyes. Like they didn’t want to say something. But Russo spoke up. “Yeah. Apparently he’s a queer. Someone told the Sergeant that he tried to fuck another Private.”

My heart sunk. “Well who told Baker?”

Russo shrugged. “I dunno. He was trying to keep it all hush hush, but now the whole camp’s gonna know he’s a faggot after this outburst.” When neither Moritz or I spoke,  he continued as he went about filling out my paperwork. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m as glad as anyone that the he isn’t around anymore. Now that I know, it’s so weird to think that he’d been walking around, changing with us, talking to us about fucking girls when he really wanted to fuck…” He shivered. “Why do queers even join the army?”   
“Maybe they love their country,” I couldn’t keep quieter any longer. With every word he said, I felt my chest get tighter and tighter. The pair looked at me suspiciously, so I was quick to cover it up with a hurried. “Or maybe they’re looking for fresh meat.”

“Yeah, this is a pervert’s paradise.” Russo agreed and that was that. 

Moritz and I sat in silence for a while, watching the medic walk back and forth, attending to patients. When I gathered the courage, I  looked over to my companion with wide eyes. “Did Melchior…?”   
That’s all I had to say before Moritz nodded, the guilt seeping from him like water through my clothes. 

Now Moritz knew, because Melchior knew, because Bobby knew. In a matter of weeks, I wouldn’t be surprised if I was next on the boat home.   
“I’m so sorry, Hanschen.”

When I finally got back to my cot, I couldn’t help but noticed Bobby’s empty.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What's popping! So I am currently at a writing intensive summer school and my writing has been evolving a lot because of that. Hopefully that has been showing in the last couple chapters of this story. So with the end of this drawing near, I'd like to ask what you think because I'd really like to do a lot more long form writings like this one!  
> TLDR: pls comment


	12. We held the day in the palm of our hand

 

“You’re not gonna talk to him?”

“No.”

“Never?”

“Never.”

Ernst looked at me, wide eyed. But he couldn’t be all that shocked, I had been sulking about how much I hated Melchior for the last half hour. “He betrayed me!” I had been shouting when I arrived at the medic’s tent long after we were supposed to be asleep. I didn’t have duty tonight, but my sleep schedule was practically ruined but Ernst. So I had no choice to stay up.

And why not stay up with the only other poor sucker awake at midnight.

He had calmed me down substantially since I first arrived. Now, it was in mild grumbles every few minutes about how Melchior’s an asshole.

“He’s your friend, Hans.”

“I don’t care,” I spat back, tugging at the lumps of grass. “He’s not my friend anymore. I can’t trust him. He got Bobby kicked out when he didn’t do anything. He might do that to me if I so much as look at him the wrong way.”

Ernst was quiet for a moment or two, the only sound coming from his breathing beside me. But he wasn’t all that happy, I could tell by the little sigh that came out when he replied. “Well...Bobby hurt you.”

He said it so simply, like it was just a matter of life. Bees make honey, Thea’s hair was brown, and Bobby Maler hurt me.

I didn’t think about it too much. I tried to never think about what had happened. It was a lot easier to not think about now that Bobby was gone. I had almost forgotten all of that night.

“Sometimes I wish I hadn’t told you that,” I said without thinking.

But Ernst didn’t seem to be too hurt by it. He just sighed again. 

There was nothing. Nothing between us and nothing above or below us. Sure, there were the stars and the ground. But I couldn’t actually think of them as star and ground. I could just think of Ernst, real and there. He’s the only thing that I can remember from that night that felt real.

Everything else was either a dream or a nightmare.

“But I’m glad you did, Hanschen.”

Ernst looked at me. He was smiling, soft and warm. It made me feel weird. But it was a good weird. I couldn’t help but smile back at him.

The next silence wasn’t unbearable. It was comfortable, something I could wrap myself up in and fall asleep. I let myself fall into it, lean into this kind silence.

I felt Ernst’s shoulder press against my own. The pressure was very subtle, just barely making contact through two layers of cloth. 

“Oh, no, I’m sitting in mud.”

I focused my eyes on Ernst again, although my gaze yearned to go back to the stars. He held up his palms, studying them as if they were the pages of the bible. The mud looks dark, almost black in the moonlight, caked over his palms. He had been sitting in a puddle of mud that I had narrowly missed. The closer I looked, I could see that the back of his pants were coated in the same black mud. This became more obvious as he stood and the mud dripped down to his thighs and the back of his knees.

“Shit,” I couldn’t help but laugh as his misfortune. “How long were you sitting in that?”

He shrugged, attempting to wipe his hands off on the front of his pants, “Not long. I think I slipped into it when I tried to get closer.”

“Well then what did you do that for?” 

As I stood, Ernst looked from me to his hands. There was something in that quiet, between his gaze and mine. Something I couldn’t put my finger on. 

“Come on. You got some mud on you as well.”   
He was right, mud was decorating the side of my thigh. I was also a bit in the puddle, probably on account of me shifting over to press back into his touch.

This would have been so embarrassing if I weren’t with Ernst Robel, his round sunshiny face looking down at me. He offered a hand, then realized how filthy they were still, and tucked it behind his back. 

The water pump sticks out of the ground at a weird angle, making it look ancient and broken. But I knew it was just some dumbass engineer who put it in a couple months ago.

A couple months. It didn’t feel like I had been here for months. Years maybe, but not months. 

I let Ernst go first, watching him rub off the mud had had managed to creep up his forearms. He bent over to splash his face a few times. I could see the silhouette of dripping water fall from the curls to the dirt. 

He stepped aside, offering me the spigot with a broad gesture. His face was bright in the full moon, smiling. God, his smile shone.

I didn’t have much mud on me, just some on my hands. But I felt like there was always mud on me lately. My existence for the past three weeks had been spent in mud up to my neck. So what was the use of scrubbing my palms if they were about to be covered again.

“I’m sorry I’m keeping you up so late.”

I shake my head at him, hoping the message of, ‘don’t worry about it’ came across. But just in case, I said to him, “It’s fine. I don’t mind.”

“I do, you need your rest,” He replied, his voice low and very nurturing. “You need to be constantly on your guard.”

“If I’m asleep then I’m not on guard.”

I splash the water up my arms. It was cold and made my skin spike up into goosebumps. I wondered if he could notice. I wondered if he was looking at me.

“Hey, Hanschen, do you miss home?” He asked,  suddenly, shocking me in the sudden switch of tone

I nod back, turning to see he was desperately wiping the mud off of the back of his pants, rinsing his hands in the spigot after every smear. “Yeah. A bit. Do you?”

“I miss my mother,” He responds. “But I don’t think I miss much else. I think everyone’s forgotten me. I don’t know how they’ll react when I get back.”

I hadn’t thought about getting back yet. And I didn’t want to. I would get back and Thea would be every angrier at me for being one of the government’s puppets. My friends would be gone, in school or working. My parents would be the same, blank and mundane. And Max would be gone. 

Of all the changes, that one still hurt the most.

“Yeah. I think they’ve forgotten me too.”

Ernst finally turns off the spigot, shaking the water off of his hands. “I don’t think they could.”

“Why?” I ask, trying to take in all the details I could. I could see his dimples, but not his freckles. I could notice the curls, but not the brown that had become lighter after a months spent in the sun. 

“Well, because I think you’re an unforgettable person,” He says as if it were casual. It definitely wasn't. “I think you’re the type of person I’m going to remember forever.”

In that instant, it made sense. I wanted him to remember me. I wanted him to remember me because I’m not gone. I wanted him to remember me because he sees me every day. I want him to remember more than me in uniform. Me sipping coffee, me making the bed, me with wet hair from the shower, me falling asleep in bed. 

I want him to remember me because I’m right there, too close to be forgotten.

“I’m not going to forget you either.”

“Good,” He grins. I notice that I can see the glow of his teeth. He’s so close to me I can finally see the freckles, darker than the rest of his tan skin. I’m not sure when he stepped closer, but I’m glad he did. Because I did not intend of forgetting this moment either. Because I wanted to reenact this over and over again every day.

We aren’t silent, because silence is uncomfortable. We’re comfortable. We’re breathing and sighing and feeling our breaths meet in the slight space between us. I don’t intend on leaving this moment. But he does, moving in to close the gap.

Before I can think, I’m kissing him. I’m kissing Ernst Robel and my brain is frozen. 

It’s nice. So nice that I don’t really feel his wet face and his wet hair dripping onto my forehead. I knew it was happening, sure, just like how I knew he was bending down awkwardly in order to get his face level with mine. But I didn’t care. All I could do was kiss him. I leaned forward, my lips being the only thing touching him and his lips being the only thing touching me.

God, he’s kissing me. He’s really kissing me. His lips are touching mine and just barely moving and I love it so much.

I separated us and watched him unfold himself, now standing tall once more. I felt my stomach turn inside out like my mother attempting to flip a pancake. 

I could see myself doing this same thing every day for as long as my mouth could move and my eyes can look up at Ernst with awe.   He was smiling at me, not shocked or full of regret like most boys. Every time I was kissed another boy, you could see the regret in his face. Whether it was in an empty car repair shop or behind my apartment building far after curfew. The only person who didn’t look at me with regret or distain after I kissed him was Max.

Max.   
“Max…”

“What?” He asked in a very quiet voice, probably to match the volume of the word I had barely rasped out.

I didn’t mean to whisper his name. It had happened. With my eyes closed and my heart in my throat, it had slipped out. 

“Nothing…” I said in a voice no louder than the breeze that barely touched our skin. 

He didn’t ask me anything else, just kissed me. This time, he touched me. He touched my forearm, running his hand over my slowly drying skin. It was innocent, his hand ending up holding mine. Just as innocent as the kiss, just lips to lips without worry or care.

“I should go,” He whispered when we split apart, slowly like we wished we could keep holding onto one another.  “Someone could find us.”

“A few more minutes,” I begged in a hushed voice. 

“Fine, a few more minutes.”


	13. They ruled the night, and the night seemed to last

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter includes violence, blood, and death.

We had gotten so lazy. As the rain went from constant to a drizzle every few days, we had gotten lazy. I still ran, but I had been running less. I trained, but I tended to forget all about the next day.

We had grown so comfortable in a foreign land. 

Now, I would spend my days laing around the base. Sometimes, Melchior would bring out his guitar and we’d sing the songs that were big when we left. Or we’d take his guitar and try to pluck out the chords of the songs that our families were sending us on tapes every few weeks. I had managed to teach Moritz all the words Light My Fire so we could sing it during meals when we heard two particularly horny engineers discussing the girls back home.

I was sort of glad Ernst talked me into forgiving Melchior. Melchior probably didn’t even know I was so mad at him. He didn’t bring up Bobby and neither did I.

Maybe I was too damn happy. Too happy to be mad at Melchior. At leas the wasn’t sending me home. 

I was so damn happy to see Ernst Robel every day. When I jogged I saw him working away in the tent. During meals, he would sit across from me with a big smile on his face. And at night, when I had watch, he would lean against me and watch the stars appear and twinkle in the skies. Back home, neither of us could see the stars. But here, it was like we could reach out and touch them. Part of me wishes that we could stay out here, in the humid jungle air where sweat glued us together whenever we touched.

And we touched often. Whenever there was a spare moment, Ernst’s hands were up my shirt, feeling the small of my back. Or stroking  my cheek and the soft skin on my neck, rubbing thumbs over the cheeks as a promise to kiss them later. His fingertips were soft and ran up and down my arms. His lips are soft and press little assurances into my skin. 

He’s all warm. Warm all over when he rubs his hands into my back, muttering how tense I am. It would be a lie to say that I’m not turned on, as I lay face down on a cot with Ernst straddling me. He presses his palms along my shoulders, tracing my spine as he worked up and down tirelessly. I was turned on, sure. But I didn’t want to have sex with Ernst. Not yet. Sex would sully it. Sure, I lusted after him, but we had time, I thought. We had plenty of time for lust. Now all I wanted as to be touched, touched and whispered to.

“Are you going to fall asleep?” He says in a voice barely above silence. I grunt a response, fearing that if I spoke I would make him stop.

He continues on a few moments later. “You look so handsome, Hansi.”

“You can’t see me,” My voice is muffled by the blankets. Ernst laughs.

“Your back is handsome,” As he speaks his fingertips trail down my sides, feeling the hills and ravines made of ribs. “Every part of you is so handsome. The little moles, your pale skin, the tan line on the back of your neck.”

My hand flies up to cover the spot on my neck where his finger was tracing. “Shut up, I can’t help it.”

He laughs and leans down, pressing his lips to the back of my neck where little hairs had grown.  He lingered there a few moments, probably tasting the sweat that clung to my skin 24/7. It was probably his sweat too. 

God, he feels beautiful.

And I feel turned on. Turned on and lazy.

When he climbs off of me, he gets back to work, acting like I was just another patient who came in with an aching back. With a flustered smile, he  took inventory of the medicine and double checked all the patients he had treated. He acted like he wasn’t looking at me every few moments, just catching my eye before turning away.

“Come back here,” I said, softly to lure him in. When Ernst doesn’t look at me, I repeat it. “Come here.” Now much sterner and demanding. He looks at me with dangerous eyes, threatening to continue this game he had started. The game that was walking circles around one another before someone starts begging. 

And I was begging.

“Please, Ernst.” I plead. Ernst now turns around and swaggers back to the bed, his head high.

Does this boy know how damn gorgeous he is, I think. He must, the way he laid himself beside me, hips square against my own and forehead against mine. “

“You’re so whiny, Hansi,” He mutters before kissing me. He kisses me like he hadn’t kissed me before. Like everytime was the first and he was trying to pull me deeper with his lips. 

I want to kiss him for as long as my lips allow. Until the sunrises and we have to pull apart because even if we stopped, the war around us was still going on.

But it wasn’t going on back home. Not in California, where Ernst told me over and over again I had to visit. He eventually started telling me that I had to move there. To Santa Barbara specifically, where he lived.  I hadn’t heard of it, but Ernst had plenty of pictures. Pictures of pretty beaches and Spanish style buildings. Big mountains and long streets filled with hippies.

I didn’t know Ernst took so many pictures. But he did. And he seemed to love them. 

My favorite Santa Barbara picture Ernst had was of himself. He leaned back lazily in a chair on a patio of some cafe. He was laughing, a light sweater hanging from his frame and a cup of coffee in front of him. He had a stack of books on the table, one in his lap like he was being sidetracked the moment the picture was taken.

“That’s from nursing school,” He told me when he saw me stop and stare at the picture. “My friend Ilse took it when we were all studying. Later that month she dropped out to move to San Francisco.”

I held my tongue from saying ‘Oh, she’s on of those’ and just nodded, keeping my eyes on his freckles face. He looked so different. In a matter of nine months he had gained more wrinkles, more bags under his eyes.

Dare I say, he’s prettier now.

He tells me to keep the picture. He doesn’t look at it all that much. I keep it back at my cot, at the bottom of the stack of letters Thea and my mother had been sending me. 

I wonder if he knew how much I cared about that picture. Not only was it of Ernst, but it was of Santa Barbara. I could so easily imagine myself sitting in the same cafe, beside Ernst sipping my own cup of coffee and holding his hand. Or walking down the hippie-flooded streets with Ernst on our way to and from his apartment. Or my apartment. Or our apartment. 

Then I hear the yelling. It was sudden and frantic, causing me to sit up immediately. Ernst, as alert as ever, completely forgot me and ran towards the entrance of the test. “What the hell is going on?”

I don’t think. I just button up my uniform shirt, trying to keep my breathing calm as I hear hurried footsteps approach the tent. 

“Ernst, Ernst!” Moritz voice comes out in pants. I cannot see him, but he is scared. “We’re under fire. Men are getting hurt.”

“Get their asses here!” He barked before turning around and shoving aside the doorway. “Hansi, we’re under fi-”

“I heard,” I fling myself towards the doorway. My feet are moving without me thinking, just like they did back in trained. The only time they pause are when I reach Ernst. His eyes are filled with fear when they meet mine. “Hold down the fort, Ernst.”

He kisses me instead of speaking. Right there in the entrance, as the noise grew outside, he kisses me like he has nothing else in the world he needs to do.  “Stay safe, please,” His voice comes out in a whisper. It’s just like Thea’s the day in the harbor. Whispering desperately so only I could hear.

“I will, I promise.”

And I’m gone. I’m running without thinking. Just running to the artillery, where all the other men happened to be flooding. 

It was loud. Filled with shouts and gunfire. I didn’t know what was going on and I didn’t bother to ask about it, much less think about it.  All I could focus on was running and getting my gun and running and not hitting anyone and running and getting my gun I have to get my gun. 

“Hanschen!” Melchior screams above the noise. All our training did not go to waste, but it did lead to panic. He’s charging at me, his rifle big, black, and bulky, is in his hands.  “Hanschen, we just have to hold them back.”

“Do they know we’re a goddamn artillery base? We’re loaded to the fucking brim with so many weapons we could-”

“All they know is that we’re American,” He barked back before taking off. It wasn’t hard to notice the kid was shaking.

I can’t get ht eimage out of my mine. Of Melchior Gabor with a gun in his hands. I remembered seeing him with the patches adoring his jacket, the peace signs and ‘NO GUNS IN THE USA’ sticking out like sore thumbs. Now he’s got an M16A1 pressed to his chest as he runs. 

The world had turned inside out under the night sky.

The shots were coming from the jungle, the treeline. We couldn’t see them, but we could hear them. Their voices were garbled, shouting out syllables that sounded like gibberish. 

I don’t remember my basic training at all. But my body did. My body ducks for cover, firing over my shoulder at the invisible men just beyond the fences. 

There’s already a line of bodies. Bodies who had been moving just like my own. But they had gotten caught before they knew to move. Now, they lay limp, bullets soaring over them. 

But I can’t look. I’m just firing and firing and firing and hoping something happens.

It feels like it’s never going to end.

This war is never going to end.

“Fuck!” A voice beside me screams. I looked over and noticed that was Moritz. Before that instant, he was just a blur moving like me. Firing and firing and ducking and firing. 

Now, he was still.  Holding on to his shoulder for dear life.

I recalled how I held my leg beside him just a few months ago. In this exact same spot. 

“Fuck, Moritz!” Stop shooting to lean over to him. “Are you hit?”

His voice comes out in sobs, shoulder shaking sobs. “I’m hit...I’m hit.. Fuck...I’m fucking…” His voice flattens out into a mumble. The panic is obvious in the air between us. 

I want to take him to medic’s tent. I want him to stop sobbing and panicking. I want him to be alright.  But I know better than to move now. “Hold tight!” I demand and go back to the motions. I move slower now, not because he’s leaning on me. But because I can now feel his warm blood trickling from his wound and into the cloth of my pants. My training didn’t count on this. 

But I keep firing. I have to keep firing. If I don’t fire, I’ll be dead. That’s what I tell myself. If I’m not shooting, I’m dying.  If I’m not shooting, I’m dying.

Moritz is actually dying.

He had gone silent. His muttering stopped a while ago. I couldn’t tell how long. Perhaps I had been shooting for half an hour, but probably no more than five minutes. 

He was passed out against me, only moving when I moved, and that was an unconscious jolt. 

I had to get him to the medic.

I can only think for a moment, debating whether or not I stay or go. Then, I’m moving. I’m tugging Moritz onto my back, feeling to make sure he still has a pulse on his slim, pale wrist. 

He’s breathing. Thank God, he’s breathing. Please keep breathing.

Moritz had become a sack of flour, a two-hundred pound sack of flower that I was dragging along. And it was so fucking hard to drag him. I have to remain crouched, shuffling behind the line of men firing.  They made no notice of me. I wondered how many men had shuffled past me with their friends on their backs while I was firing. 

I wasn’t quite sure where the tent was in relation to where I was. I just moved in the general direction and prayed that I could find it before Moritz’s faint heartbeat became silent. 

Then I saw him. A flash of brown curls shot past me, towards a man who was rocking back and forth holding his stomach. Ernst kneeled over the soldier, his hands making quick work to take off his shirt and put pressure on the guys wound. I could only watch as his hands turned red with blood and the man fell limp.

I couldn’t think of what had just happened. I called out to Ernst as he held onto the man’s wrist with his bloody hand. No sign of life in him. “Ernst!”

Turning, he lunged at me immediately with open arms. “What? What happened? Moritz!”

I awkwardly shifted Moritz over to Ernst, who was kneeling beside me now. “He was hit in the shoulder. I think he’s in shock.”

Ernst found his pulse and was quick to wrap Moritz’s shoulder. I couldn’t watch for long. I heard the fire of machine guns and my body moved back to lift my rifle. Firing again and again over my soldier. I can only look back for a fraction of a second to see if Ernst was still there. And he was there, slouching over Moritz so close he was almost on top of him. 

“Moritz, come on, wake up!” He assured Moritz, who was moving back into the realm of consciousness. He woke up a little more every time I looked over my shoulder.

Thank God, he’s alive. 

Carter!” He screamed to a medic running over from the tent. “Carter, get him to safety. Hanschen, help me move him.”   
I obey, letting the gun fall back to my side and put my arms around Moritz’s torso. I can’t quite remember standing upright, but I must have. Because only a moment later, I fell. I fell because of the pain that had struck the small of my back and ran up and down my legs. But the pain was only momentary. After that, nothing.

Yes, there was pain, searing and hot across the small of my back. But not in my legs.

Fuck. Hot hot hot pain. It fills my head and pounds against my skin until it’s all I feel, all I think, all there is.

“Hanschen, fuck!” What sounds like Ernst says. I’m not really sure because there’s a pounding in my ears like a heartbeat. It’s becoming all I can hear as she pain intensifies. I try to move myself, to shift away from the firing guns. But I can’t. 

I can’t even write in pain. All I can do in lay there. I might be shouting. I don’t know. Cause all I can hear is the pounding.

Then I feel his hands. Soft against my face. God, he’s so soft. I can move my head, enough to press into my palm. Thank God, I can move my face.

God. God. God. I think there’s God.

God let me move.

No. I’m not saying that. Ernst is, above the pounding. He’s praying. He’s praying at the attempts to see what had happened to me.   
I can’t really tell what he’s doing. I can’t see it either. It’s gotten so blurry.

“God, please, if you can save his life...”

He is touching my back. I don’t think I’m bleeding. Maybe I am.

“....I need him alive…”

He’s just a shadow now, holding onto me. I can’t hold him back.

“...God, I love him…”

Everything’s shadow now. I think I can feel him grab onto my wrist. I must have stopped screaming. But I can’t tell him that I’m breathing. I want him to know that I’m alive, I promise. I’m not going to die in your care.

“...Please, God…”

I stop hearing Ernst, I stop hearing the guns. I just here the pounding.

I’m fine, Ernst. I’m here. 


	14. We left in plastic as numbered corpses

I couldn't’ believe Melchior didn’t show up. He was invited, I knew that. I even asked him to come with my own damn mouth. But he never showed. 

I waited for him almost an hour after the funeral had ended, smoking cigarette after cigarette on the front steps. I had gotten through half a pack before Thea’s small hand touched my shoulder. 

“Come on, Hansi. We should head out,” She whispered. Her eyes had spent the entire service looking at all the unfamiliar faces, as if on the defense. I felt a bit bad for making her come to a church full of strangers when she didn’t like crowds or church. 

But I didn’t know anyone either.

I nod, flicking out my ashes and taking a final drag. “You want to go through the cemetery one last time?” She asked me. I avoid her eye and instead look at the neatly trimmed grass interrupted by grey stone. 

The newest grave was in the back of the cemetery, near all the older, crumbling headstones. Fresh words, unchipped and smooth read ‘Ernst A. Robel’ in bold print, directly below ‘January 15 1948- December 2 1968. Medic for twenty-third infantry in Vietnam. Hero, Son, Friend’

I stared at it long enough the words had burnt into my brain. Part of me was glad that his mother had decided to bury him in New York, right next to the graves of his grandparents. I looked at their rough stone, the story of two Italian immigrants with dreams of a better life for their family. And the proof of that family being cut short right beside them. 

Part of me wished he had been buried back at home. That was I wouldn’t feel the urge to come back here again and again.

“No. I’m fine.”

I have to stop staring at it. 

Thea leads me to the car, helping me in with some struggle. But much less than she normally did. She was still panting when I asked her, “Hey, Thea? I really want to see a friend. Do you mind? He’s not too far.”

“How far?”

“He’s in Brooklyn.”

I know that she knows how to get there. But I don’t bring it up, I just give her the directions and keep pretending she’s oblivious. Now doesn’t feel like the time to talk about it.

It had been snowing for a few days before and the roads were slick with ice. Thea had never been the best drive, but she was sure to be extra cautious as we rode from Cypress Hills to the front stoop of a squat, brick apartment. 

I asked her to park a block away, just in case he didn't want to see me. Maybe he ditched the funeral to avoid me. Or maybe he just forgot.

But I had forgotten that he had steps on his front stoop. As we double checked the address, I could hear Thea sigh.

“Thea, you don’t need to help me up. We can just head bak ho-”

“Shut up, let’s get you up.”

If I could have helped, I would. Thea breathed hard, just like she did when she helped me up the stairs to our apartment. But when she helped me to the apartment, she normally called up to my mother or father to help her up the steep staircase.

Now it was just her and a few stone steps. I leaned forward a big, attempting to help in what little way I could. Grunting, she struggled to push me up the first step. I was turning to her, telling her that is was no use and we should just go home when the door before us entered.

“Hanschen, Thea,” Wendla’s voice called from the doorway, light and content. “Do you want some help?   
She looked tired, her hair up and bags under her eyes. I tried not to stare when I thanked her and sat as still as possible while she and Thea managed to force my chair up to the front door. “Come on in, guys,” She said, trying to hid the fact that she was panting. I didn’t blame her. She was a small girl, probably weighing no more than a hundred twenty pounds. I always thought she was so short when we were in school together, but now I was craning my neck to look up at her. But I had gotten used to the constant neck cramp. “You want something to drink? We haven’t packed up the lemonade yet.”

Wendla and Melchior had been ‘living in sin’, as my mother would call it, since Melchior got back. But Wendla’s winter break was soon coming to an end and his apartment was being packed up. 

The living room and dining room had cardboard boxes lining the walls and covering the surfaces. As Thea rolled me through the small living space, my feet hit a few spare boxes left in the walkway, probably by Melchior. I only knew when I heard the dull thud and when Thea would squeak out “Oops, sorry,” To Wendla, following with two plastic cups of lemonade.

Melchior was in the back bedroom, remaining oblivious to my arrival until I knocked on the already open door. When he looked him, he wasn’t looking at me. He was looking past me, as if he were looking for something else. 

“Oh, Hanschen,” He smiled after a hesitation. He stood up from where he had been sitting on the bare mattress, putting clothes into a cardboard box. “How have you been?”

I mutter out a ‘fine’ before he turned to look at Thea, smiling like the old him, “Hey there, Thea.”

“Hey, Melchior,” She looked between me and him, probably realizing we wanted to be alone. “Wendla, let me help you pack.”

The girls closed the door behind them, their voices catching up with one another and gossiping all the way back down the hall. I didn’t speak until they were out of earshot, “So you’re leaving?”

Melchior nodded, “Yeah. I’m heading down to Pennsylvania, Philadelphia to be specific. So Wendla can finish up her schooling and I can look for a job.”

“A job? You’re working?” I almost chuckled. He stared back at me with a plastered smile. “I wouldn’t expect you, of all people, to go job hunting.”

He just shrugged, sitting back on the edge of the mattress. “Well, I don’t want to either. But I’m doing what I have to.”

I wanted to comment on that’s what he did before and look how he ended up. But I don’t. I just nod. “You missed the funeral, you know.”

I took the elephant in the room and killed it dead. How could I when that was the only thing on my mind. He was surprised, but replied after a deep breath. “That was today?”

I nod again and wheel myself to the window. There were the bars that blocked every Brooklyn window, but I was able to crack it open. “Yeah, it was. You mind if I smoke?”

“Knock yourself out, Hans,” He took another breath. “Well, I was busy packing.”

“Huh, when do you two leave?” I lit the cigarette with the little silver zippo I kept in my pocket. 

“Tomorrow. Mind if I pack?”

I shrug and take a drag, realizing that between the funeral and now I had smoked most of the other half of the pack. He went back to pulling clothes from the dresser drawer and putting them into the cardboard. There was something serene in the way he pulled and packed and pulled and packed. Very repetitive. 

“Did you really forget?”   
“About what?” He looks at me in a strange way for a moment or two then realized. “Oh, yeah, the funeral.”

I flicked my ashes onto the windowsill. I doubted he would notice before he left. “I mean. How do you forget something like that?”

He was silent for soem time. I had stopped watching him, but I could tell he wasn’t moving anymore. “I just didn’t want to go, Hans. I’m trying to forget about it all.”

“You know the war is still going on, Melchior. You can’t just forget about something that’s still happening.”

“Well I have,” He spat back faster than I could think. “I threw out my uniform, I sent back my medals-”

“You sent back your medals?”

Melchior looked at me with disdain. “What? I’m sorry Mister Purple Heart but-”

“I don’t look at it, but I didn’t send it back.”

He nods, as if I proved him right. I don’t want to say anything, but I probably did. “Listen. Ernst was a great guy. But I don’t want to be reminded that he died.”

“Why?”

I might have sounded too hostile, because Melchior met my tone in an angry voice, “Because I have to remember how he died.”

If I could stand, I would have. I would have stood and grabbed him by the throat, shouting at him that he didn’t have the right to not want to remember. He wasn’t there. He wasn’t the dumbass who he died trying to save. Maybe if he was the one Ernst bled out on top of, he would have the right to not want to remember.

I would give anything to remember. I wish I was awake to tell him I was alright and to go on, help someone else. Don’t waste your time on me, I can’t be fixed. Go somewhere else, avoid the bullet that would find its home in your abdomen. 

But I can’t. So I nod, taking another drag. I let the smoke fill my lungs, like I’m trying to cook myself from the inside out. “So, have you told Moritz you’re leaving?”

“Yeah, we went out for a drink last night. Says he thinks he’s gonna head out to Chicago. Trying to get a factory job, but the shoulder still giving him hell,” He looked at me, all anger dissipating. “Looks like you’re the only one staying put.”

I shake my head and put of the cigarette on the window frame. He sees but doesn’t care. “I’m not staying put. I’m heading out to California after New Year.”

“Isn’t that gonna be hard?” He didn’t say it, but his eyes lingered on my wheels. 

“Thea is gonna help me get out there. Then she’s going back up to school and I’m staying in Santa Barbara.”

“Where’s that?” He asked. I don’t think the kid had been anywhere else other than New York, Vietnam, and a few streets in San Francisco.

I cough as I roll myself back towards the door and towards him, “By the ocean. It’s a nice place, ground floor with a good view.”

He stands and walks towards the door. When he opens it, the voices of Thea and Wendla echo from down the hall, their giggles ringing through the empty home. “Why the ocean?”

“I always wanted to go,” I lie, approaching him slowly. “And if I can’t go to college, I might as well go there.”

I don’t mention Ernst. Or how I managed to send enough letters and make enough calls to find the apartments behind him in the picture, right across from his favorite cafe that I already decided would be my favorite as well. 

Just thinking about it makes my wallet feel heavier in my pocket. Even though the picture was light, barely weighing anymore than the folded piece of binder paper Max drew cherubs on after a visit to the Met. 

I had a hitlist in my pocket and a hole in my heart meant for artists. 

“I’ll see you, Hanschen,” Melchior smiled at me after helping the girls get me down the steps. “Promise I’ll write.”

I nod at his lie, welcoming it warmly. “Alright, Melchior. Take care.”

Thea and Wendla waved goodbye, calling out that they’ll have to talk before we began the long walk back to the car.  Thea was quiet for most of it, humming softly a song I didn’t recognize at first. 

“Hey, is that Buffalo Springfield?”

The thought of her smile warmed me up the way that my layers of jackets couldn’t. “Yeah. It is. You got a good ear for this, you could be a musician, Hansi.”

“I think I’d rather be a writer,” I reply before sighing out along with Thea’s tune. “It's time we stop, hey, what's that sound, everybody look - what's going down…”

She was quick to pick up where I was, her walk along the sidewalk getting faster as she sang alone. “What a field day for the heat, a thousand people in the street…”

Our singing was quiet along the Brooklyn street, but anyone walking past could see our smiles and know.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh hey, what up, that's the end. I loved writing this and I'm starting another longer chaptered fic like this one soon. I hope you liked this and I'm always posting dumb shit like this on my tumblr @melchixr

**Author's Note:**

> please comment and kudos. if you want more, let me know and also please follow my tumblr @Melchixr.
> 
> PS: this is the song i was inspired by/ cry to. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qjzjhl-QztE


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